Posts Tagged ‘dying’

Death, Dying and the Catholic website’s “how to” guide

Friday, November 4th, 2016

Death. Dying with dignity. Facing death with courage. Dying well. Bereavement. We all have to face these issues at some stage – but how? Is there an art to dying? Yes, there is. A new website hosted by the Catholic Church in England and Wales has decided to confront the big taboo and is using Read more

About death and dying

Friday, September 23rd, 2016

We can never truly understand another’s experience of dying, or understand what happens psychically, spiritually, physically and emotionally when a person is close to death. An incredibly subjective experience, we can only make guesses as to what being in that ‘twilight zone’ of hovering between life and death might actually be like. When I worked Read more

Talking about death: end-of-life care

Tuesday, October 13th, 2015

Bestselling author Dr. Atul Gawande’s new book focuses on medical care for the dying. In an interview, he speaks with SPIEGEL about end-of-life priorities, when treatment is a mistake and how rules in care homes are made to be broken. SPIEGEL: Doctor Gawande, are you beginning to feel your age? Gawande: Without question. I had Read more

Death doesn’t have the last word

Tuesday, August 11th, 2015

As I was writing last week, my wife’s mother was dying. She died Sunday morning, at 95, after a long and full life. It was a good death, to use an unfortunately old-fashioned phrase, but death is still death. One effect, as many of you will understand, is to make me think more about death Read more

Celia Lashlie says …

Friday, February 20th, 2015

The seductive nature of the modern world allows us as human beings to believe we are in charge. In today’s world we think we are in charge. Technological advances and intellectual knowledge we continue to acclaim, leaves us with the sense that we are in control and that there is enough time to achieve what it Read more

Lent: entering the time of ashes

Friday, February 20th, 2015

The funeral procession was lengthy that late January day, crawling down the parkway. I was at the intersection, stalled between errands and an afternoon of teaching; counting the minutes, wondering how many cars the cortege numbered. I knew what was coming, just around the corner. After Groundhog Day and Valentine’s: Ashes. The crush of pitch Read more

Grief warranted, but coverage out of kilter

Friday, December 5th, 2014

There has been a massive outpouring of grief for Australian batting star Phil Hughes, who died having never regained consciousness after being hit on the top of the neck by a bouncer during an interstate game last Tuesday. The youth and promise of the cricketing star, who was by all accounts an extremely likeable young Read more

The good death

Tuesday, September 30th, 2014

For as far back as I can remember, I have been preoccupied with what it will be like to die. As a girl, I would often zone out on my bed, or at my desk in school, imagining that I was on the verge of death, and trying on a range of possible reactions: terror, Read more

The death of my father

Tuesday, July 9th, 2013

I’m dealing with the death of my father the way I deal with most things: by thinking, and processing those thoughts through writing, fingers to keyboard. Given my philosophical bent, these thoughts wander from his particular death to mortality in general. That might strike you as cold, excessively rational, analytic. But the only rule about Read more

A better way of dying

Friday, June 14th, 2013

As Seigan Glassing walked down the sterile, white hospital corridor, he thought of a poem written by well-known Zen master Kozan Ichikyo shortly before his death. Empty handed I entered The world Barefoot I leave it My coming, my going — Two simple happenings That got entangled. Seigan paused outside one of the identical doors Read more