Tomorrow I am off to Noosaville to attend a Conference titled “Death, Dying and the Undead” at the Central Queensland University Campus at Noosaville. As someone who writes the occasional Obituary, I am looking forward to it. Oddly enough there are other similar events around the country at this time. This weekend, there was one in Melbourne – details here.
There was an article in the ABC News website today too – which asks people to talk about death with their families. Here is the article. I know it is hard to do – to discuss it.
I tried to talk about it with my parents – both passed on now – but as they aged it was hard to discuss it with them without sounding rather morbid. They did do a lot in preparation but it was not something discussed with me – they just didn’t want to talk about it.
On the other side, I am happy to talk about it – and have made quite a few plans in preparation for my eventual demise, but my children do not want to speak with me about it.
I have as a nurse, and at other occasions, spent time with dying people. As a junior nurse, we had no training or preparation for such an event, and it took time for me to be comfortable in that situation. Later I was able to say that I felt it was just as moving to be at a death as it was to be at a birth, and I have been at a few of those too.
Obituaries interest me – not in a morbid way – but because like life stories and often Obits are usually the story that should have been recorded earlier, but wasn’t. Everyone has a story, and I think many of us recall being at a funeral and learning amazing information about the deceased and feeling rather disappointed that we had not known the information when that were alive.
Last week there was a feature article in one of the mags inside the newspaper, which was very informative focussing on the funeral industry.
I am pleased that there is more publicity about the dying, as there is so much we can do, much better than we do now.
