Funeral Service Times August 2017 March 2019 | Page 18

18 THE ART OF DYING WELL
Deathbed discussions
Elena Curti reflects on the Art of Dying Well’s recent event at St Mary’s University, where actor
Greg Wise and palliative care consultant Kathryn Mannix share their deathbed experiences
G
reg Wise has been shot,
drowned, hanged and stabbed
in the course of his acting
career. But he has learned
that his deaths on stage and screen are
nothing like the real thing. Dying is usually
gentle, quiet, and pretty dull according to
palliative care consultant Kathryn Mannix
who has seen upwards of 10,000 patients
die in the course of her work. So began a
conversation between Greg and Kathryn
who, with their respective books, are
helping to bring the subject of death and
dying out of the shadows.
Greg Wise is a successful actor who put
his career on hold to become full time carer
for his sister, Clare, when her breast cancer
spread to her bones. Their book, Not That
Kind of Love (Quercus Books), consists of
blogs written by Clare and then taken up
by her brother in the last three months of
her life.
Kathryn Mannix took early retirement
to devote her life to easing people's’
fears about death. Her book, With the
End in Mind (HarperCollins), is filled
with deathbed stories that are positive
and reassuring. It is no accident that the
paperback edition features a cup of tea on
the cover.
The pair were in conversation with LBC
Radio presenter, Shelagh Fogarty, in the
first public event organised by The Art
of Dying Well (artofdyingwell.org), an
initiative based at St Mary’s University,
Twickenham, west London. The discussion
took place on 18 January at the university’s
theatre, The Exchange.
All three speakers agreed that our
uneasiness with talking about death is
manifest when we avoid the “D” world
and say someone has been “lost” or has
“passed away”. Shelagh reflected that the
Irish are much more comfortable talking
about death, with small children attending
wakes and funerals. Greg thought part of
the problem is that most of us no longer
live in strong communities. He said he was
fortunate to have friends and family living
close by who rallied round when his sister
was ill. “It takes a village to help someone
to die. People today die in industrial
complexes called hospitals,” he says.
Shelagh described calls on her phone-in
show from people traumatised because
MARCH 2019
they had witnessed terrible deaths. Kathryn
said this was because they had not been
told what normal death looks like: “If
someone has talked you through what
happens when someone is dying and can
say ‘do you remember that breathing I told
you about? That’s what’s happening now.’
It sounds like the person is choking but, in
reality, that person is deeply comatose and
not suffering at all.”
She added it can help relatives to stay
calm if the dying person has planned ahead
and told them where they would like to
die and also to have a plan B in case their
chosen scenario is not possible. Later, she
advised anyone facing terminal illness to
think about how they organise Christmas to
find their coping strategy.
But Greg’s sister, Clare, refused to make
any plans, something he found frustrating:
“People die as they have lived. Dying is
not a separate thing. It is living still. So as
people are dying they entrench. My sister
lived her life in denial and she died in
denial.” He said that Clare died a minute
after he told her he loved her, that things
had become too difficult and that she did
not have to stay any more.
Dying after loved ones have given
permission is quite common, said Kathryn
Mannix. She had seen patients who should
have died weeks earlier stay alive in order
to hear important news, such as exam
results or a baby’s birth, or who those die in
the 30 seconds that loved ones are absent
from their bedside.
The “permission to die” is not always
taken. Kathryn related that when her
maternal grandmother was dying, her
mother told her she could “go now”. The
dying woman replied: “Go where?”
During questions from the audience,
a woman told of how a “soul midwife”
was supporting her dying mother. Soul
midwives and end of life doulas (a Greek
word used to denote a companion or
accompanier) are specially trained lay
people who accompany individuals who
are terminally ill. Kathryn Mannix said they
perform a valuable role.
Afterwards, I asked Greg about his
sister’s funeral given that she had left no
instructions. He said: “I thought it essential
to include those who were inside the
first circle around her – that is her four
closest female friends and my family.
We realised that the funeral would either
be seven of us or a few hundred, so
decided on the former. I looked at various
coffins at the funeral directors’, but none
seemed appropriate for Clare, so I found
in a catalogue a crazy ‘Disco Ball’ coffin.
Everyone thought it fitting for my Disco
Diva sis. She loved 80s disco!”.
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