After sitting at so many deathbeds, and accompanying the final parts of so many people's journeys, a peculiar familiarity with dying becomes a daily companion. Strangely, this is not a burden or a sadness, but a lightening of perspective and a joyful spark of hope, a consciousness that everything passes, whether good or bad, and the only time that we can really experience is this present, evanescent moment. This makes hard times slightly easier to bear, and good times immediately precious. Both happiness and disappointment will pass in time. Awareness of the temporary essence of all lived experience is humbling. That is why Roman generals who were granted a Triumph (a congratulatory public parade to mark their accomplishments) were accompanied in their chariot throughout the pomp and cheering by a slave whose role was to remind them of their mortality, and that this moment too will pass.
The folk stories of every society include quests for immortality that almost always come to a bad end. Or they tell of immortals whose deathless nature condemns them to loneliness. Or, most significantly of all, they speak of immortals who sacrifice their immortality to live a mortal life, for the love of a human being. The distillation of a civilisation's wisdom into its folk tales shows us that immortality is recognised as a poisoned chalice. Death itself is perceived by ancient wisdom as a necessary and even welcome component of the human condition: a finality that ends uncertainty or despair; a mandated temporal boundary that makes time and relationships priceless; a promise of the laying down of the burdens of living, and the end of the repeated daily struggle.
In sharing the stories of so many ordinary people as they reached their final days, I hope that I have shown that, in the end, none of us is ordinary, that each unique individual is extraordinary in their own way. As we approach the ends of our lives, we experience a shift in perspective that allows us to focus on the most important things in our own domain. This shift is both poignant and freeing, as these stories illustrate. Living is precious, and is perhaps best appreciated when we live with the end in mind.
It's time to talk about dying.
I have. Thank you for listening. Now it's your turn to talk.