Dying, death and being dead. I’m perfectly at ease with all three – in fact, I rather look forward to them, whenever and however they come. We’re certain these things will happen, and if we’re lucky we have plenty of time to prepare for them.

Dying is about coming to terms with the end of life. It’s a process, not an event – an opportunity to reflect on one’s achievements and impact, mistakes and oversights. It’s a time to leave nothing unsaid.

Death is about letting go – that moment of sweet surrender when you allow the inevitable to take over and relax into unconsciousness, like that delicious point between exhaustion and a much-needed sleep. Buddhist thought holds that suffering comes from struggle, and death comes when you allow both to end.

Being dead is simply about physically being no more. Everything you were persists and all that you’ve done remains, but your body has moved on for recycling. It’s exactly as things were before you were born, but the world and the people you love and who love you have had the benefit of your being. Whether life lasts minutes, days, years or decades makes no difference to the universe: you have been.

This is how I view my mortality. Life and death come as an inseparable package deal, and each of these elements play an essential part. I accept them, value them and embrace them for the essential experiences they are.

Some talk about or believe in a life after death. And of course they’re right: the stuff we’re made of has been around since the beginning of time, and will be until its end. I just think of the joyous chance and good luck that for a brief, wonderful blink of time, some of those molecules were assembled into me.

On Mortality

Our temporariness is such a short time.

I strive to do my best.

I strive to accept my best is ‘good enough’.

I fear deterioration in mental and physical capacity. To me, those capacities enable me to contribute my best to life on earth.

On the other hand, I accept an end to living. Life on earth thrives from cycles of ideas, inputs, happenings – beginnings and endings and lives in between.

I accept my influence is in the now. We are finite beings.

We need to prepare ourselves: to learn to step aside; to pass on to others; to pass on the baton!

The pandemic has emphasised our vulnerability and our mortality. I have talked more about death – the end – during this unusual time. The end is non-negotiable. It is harder to talk about getting there. This path is more ‘messy’, more unpredictable.

My uncle whom I did not know well died recently at the age of 94 years. I knew him from afar as he emigrated to Canada with my aunt in 1955. From when I was a child, I thought of him as an adventurer and courageous. He broke the mould and broke the rules of the time! He grasped life and opportunities. He was a thinker and wise counsel, a considerate, kind man. His family was very precious to him. His aspirations for his children, with his help to prepare and support them in their lives, was for them to be kind to each other and to others. He and my aunt also discussed the end of life and made plans, and fulfilled them courageously.

Thinking about his life and his achievements has focused my thoughts on my life and my end. Yes, we must all talk more.

I am fortunate that my life has been a happy one. Now retired, my days still fill with simple pleasures, a favourite of which are walks with my wife Lek, our still-growing family, and my whippet. Lek and I treasure above all else these times spent with our family. But I am now getting close to the end of my life. This prospect does not trouble me greatly even though, as a scientist, I discounted long ago any supernatural explanation of life in favour of one based on natural forces, including evolution, genetics, and heredity. My own genetic make-up, inherited from my parents and theirs, has already been passed to our children and grandchildren in that cycle from birth to birth that bypasses death. Although I am saddened to think that my death may cause my family grief, they will surely be comforted knowing as they walk away from the grave, that they together represent more of me than lies behind. And they will know that I loved them each and that their company was my greatest pleasure. I find immense comfort also in knowing that the same ties of heredity binds us to all life on earth, in all its various forms. We must therefore be kind, and look after each other.

Looking towards my final days, I want to avoid that greatest of all indignities and distresses, of declining into mental confusion and helplessness. If that seems likely I have planned a merciful end to my own happy life.

Two days after my 56th birthday, without any warning at all, I was floored by pains in my chest. Without hesitation, my husband took me to A&E who swiftly declared I was having a heart attack. I had not been ill, not at all. That day I’d walked in the sunshine, had a chicken in the oven, washing on the line. It was January and the day was clear and blue. I had been reading quietly whilst the chicken roasted when the pain gripped me at 2.00pm. By 3:30 pm I had had a stent inserted in an artery by an extraordinary team of professionals and was being wheeled back to the ward. My husband was standing there holding my jacket and shoes, pensive, concerned, and reached out and took my hand.

In two months of recovery I had a lot of time to reflect. I was told that due to the quick actions of my husband I had no lasting heart damage – this is good! I was also told that I had a congenital heart defect that had only emerged now in middle age, so that was good to know! By holding onto the science, I gradually emerged from the emotional gloom and let go of the fear. And by absorbing the love of all those around me, I climbed back to health.

Science matters, love matters, and how we live our lives matters. Death will come to me one day, of course. But until it does I am going to carry on living my life openly, fully, and lovingly, believing this is the best legacy I can leave about me to those who I love who will live life beyond me.

It’s 3.00am and my daughter is awake. I go to cuddle her and realise she’s crying. ‘I don’t want to die’, she says, ‘Or you to die. What will happen? Would you miss me?’ I get a flashback to my own childhood and the moment when the realisation hit that me and everyone I knew and loved was going to die someday. I recalled the fear, the sadness. Here it was replayed in front of me.

I want to support my daughter through her worries, but 3.00am with a 3 year old is no time for philosophy. We have stories as our common language and lots of them. I remember the stories that helped me, inspired me, that taught me that it was important to have your own story to tell at the end of your life and that you had to work hard to create it. All those little bits of hope, wisdom and guidance kept me going even though I didn’t even know I had them until I needed them.

They taught me that my own worries about death, when I was able to stand up and address them rather than shy away or ignore them, gave me insight into what I really cared about. I was thinking about the people I wanted to spend time with, and was terrified I wouldn’t get to write my own stories or learn or see anything new. My passions came to light when a limit was put upon my time. I don’t always get it right, but now I have this awareness I hope I am living in accordance with these passions, so that when I come to the end of my life, I can rest with the knowledge not that I did everything, but that I did my thing.

Our society shuns away from talking or thinking about death. We know it hovers in the background, like a cloud, somewhere, but we never wish to turn and look it in the face. We certainly are not encouraged to talk about it.

The deaths of my father, my much loved cousin (who was like a brother to me) and then two years ago my beloved husband, have caused me to face this wispish cloud. I am still determined to live forever, but now realise this may not be reality!

I have no children to carry on my line, a great sadness.

Instead, I write and paint, hoping that my creations will remain treasured in the world long after I am gone. Maybe they will offer comfort to others and bring smiles to faces unknown to me.

What we leave behind are memories, with our family, our friends and sadly also with our enemies. So, it seems to me that a great importance in life is to try to ensure that we have no enemies. That there will be no one who thinks badly of us in the future. That we leave only golden memories, happy memories with lots of laughter, fun, wisdom and friendship.

The way to do this is to live well, think before we speak, love others, be happy.

I want to be remembered with a smile, or not at all.

My death is certain. There is no doubt. Life is not certain. It may be lost or hindered at any time. That is why it must be lived with purpose.

When I die I shall make way for those who follow, to build with renewed vigour and knowledge on the world as they find it, including the effects of my existence. I shall be no more than atoms available for recycling by some other animals, plants or rocks. Those who love me will be sad, that I regret, but lasting impressions have been made from the day I was born. My existence can never be erased. And that is surely more than enough.

I believe that after death we just stop; there is nothing else. So, I don’t have the comfort and luxury of hoping to meet people again. This only adds to the brutal finality of death, and means that every moment of life is precious.

I am in awe of life, of nature, the cosmos, science, literature, music and art. I’m lucky; though I have arthritis with a lowered immune system due to medications, I’m otherwise reasonably healthy. I love my job as a humanist celebrant (when I’m not shielding, as now). My family consists of my husband and grown-up daughter, my sister and nephew and niece, all of whom I love very much. I have a lot of interests and crave as much time as possible to continue them. I do not need to feel that my genes will go on; they won’t – my daughter is adopted. But I believe love goes on, for a while, and when it stops because no one is left to remember you, then in a way it doesn’t matter. ‘All things must pass.’ So, something of me will go on, for a while, in my daughter.

Of course, what I want is to live a full life for as long as possible and die peacefully in my sleep at a ripe old age. But, I’m a realist, and I know that might not happen, so I don’t dwell on it. Shielding has made me think more about my own death. I don’t want it to be because of Covid. Hopefully, it won’t be. In the meantime, I intend to make the most of life, which, as always, means embracing the lows as well as the highs, the sorrow as well as the joy, the dark as well as the light. It is now that matters.

Thoughts Towards The End of a Lifespan

I’ve lived more than my three score years and ten.
Hips, knees and fingers all ache to be still.
My once-smooth skin is lined and getting thin.
Departed friends have left big holes to fill.

But now at last I’ve free time to deploy
Without the need to please all those I see.
Grandchildren and their parents give me joy;
And savings let my thought and life be free.

As fellow baby-boomers disappear
I wonder what I will have left behind.
Some things I’ve done and said others can share;
My genes you’ll now in better places find

Each night, relaxing with a sigh of peace,
I hope death’s much the same: just breathing’s cease.

Phil on Death

When did you first meet?

I first met Death when I was ten years old living in a boarding school. My grandmother and uncle died around the same time. I wasn’t allowed to go to the funerals. I became very depressed and it led me into an uncomfortable preoccupation with Death, which lasted for years.

When did you become friends?

I studied evolutionary theory at university and it is really through this that I recognised Life and Death as two great forces that drove creativity and change. They were both essential, and both responsible, for love, diversity and beauty.

What do you like most about Death?

As an artist I can’t help but be in awe of the power of death, the mystery and even the glamour. It can also be a motivation for exceptional behaviours, for creating and expressing life. Exquisite really…

What do you least like about Death?

I am still scared of Death. Of course I am. I can’t quite bring myself to accept Death. I hope that my ideas and actions live on, at least for a little while, in the memories of others.

Then finally, as my body balances on the cusp of nothingness, I will look back and know that I loved and cherished life. I think that will be my comfort.

I don’t have an overly philosophical approach to my death and, to be honest, I don’t think about it that much. I know that it will happen, probably before I want it to, and that when it does I will be like the Norwegian Blue in Monty Python’s wonderful Dead Parrot sketch: no more! … ceased to be! … a stiff! … bereft of life!

Rather than making me anxious or leaving me searching for some role for myself in the cosmic scheme of things, the certainty and finality of my death gives me comfort. Knowing I have but this one life means that it is entirely up to me to fill it with joy and meaning while it lasts. Its value is mine, and mine alone, to determine.

But – and this is very important to me – even after I die, I know that the best part of me will be left behind. When my family embraces love in its myriad forms, has a festive Sunday roast, gives a weird gift, talks openly with each other about what they’re feeling, chooses doing the right thing over taking the easy option, argues semantics, and laughs at things it is not polite to laugh at, I’ll be there with them. These are my gifts to them and will have been theirs to me.

I don’t need more than that. It’s enough, and I am happy.

‘I do not fear death’, said Mark Twain. ‘I was dead for billions of years before I was alive, and it caused me not the slightest inconvenience’. For me, the idea that my own mortality is something I have to ‘come to terms with’ is an odd one, like saying one has to come to terms with the fact that night follows day.

My consciousness and personality clearly cannot survive the death of my brain and the rest of my body. It’s obviously impossible. How could the various atoms and molecules which comprise my dead body somehow reform themselves into a version of myself and continue living in some way? And would I really want them to? Equally, the notion put forward by religions that human consciousness survives death in some ‘spiritual’ form can only ever be a matter of pure speculation and imagination. There is no evidence for it: on the contrary, all the evidence is that death is the end of the individual.

So I accept that after I am dead I will no longer exist, any more than I existed for the first 14 billion years following the Big Bang. The truly amazing thing is that I am alive right now, looking out of my conservatory window as I type this, watching the sparrows on the bird feeders, and admiring the snowdrops on the rockery as the weak February sunshine slants across them. For me to exist a certain sperm had to meet a certain egg. My parents had to be born and survive long enough to meet each other, as did their parents and their parents, and so on back (almost) ad infinitum. Being alive is so remarkably unlikely, statistically speaking, that it needs celebrating every moment of every day. So the answer to my own mortality is simple: I try to live healthily so as to postpone my death for as long as possible; and I try to live well and be happy while I am here.