Thought Picnic: You Only Die Once

Knowing my mortality

I came close to appreciating my mortality when just under 5 years ago, on being diagnosed with a form of skin cancer, I was advised that the possible outcomes were anything between 5 weeks at worst and survival.

I am still here, but careful to keep a close eye on my health and possibilities I have for living much longer than I could have envisaged.

One fact I am always aware of is my vulnerability, and though I do as much to live as someone living rather than someone who is dying, the questions of life and death persist.

Planning for that end

I have lost friends, cousins and uncles, too many gone long before their time due to all sorts of circumstances that leaves one both saddened and fortunate to still be here.

There is a need to plan for that eventuality, probably write a will, decide where one wants to be buried and make the adequate arrangements before time, and prepare people for it by making that final welfare a celebration rather than a sorrowful passing.

I would love to do some things before I go though, the earth is a beautiful place, much of which I would still love to see. I dream and I hope, then get to live those amazing dreams one way or the other, there is no doubt that I have been blessed.

Where to rest in peace

Last year, I spent a week in Walsall where I was born and there was some unfinished business about that visit. I wanted to go to the Anglican Church there and find out about what it takes to get a place to be buried. It is far from my ancestral home but it is the place where I came into this world and I have a strong connection with that idea.

Death is nothing to be afraid of, whilst life is something to be enjoyed to the full. You only die once and this is something I have decided to think about on the 5^th Dying Matters Awareness Week.