Do you ever think about dying? Here’s why we do: LYNN BARBER, MARY KILLEN, JULIE BURCHILL, MICHAEL ODELL AND DAVID AARONOVITCH?
Lynn Barber
There’s a 広大な／多数の／重要な moment in the Barbie film where Margot Robbie blurts out, ‘Do you guys ever think about dying?’ and everyone is shocked. But I can 保証する you that oldies like me (I’m 79) think about dying the whole time and talk about it too.?
In fact, it’s our 絶対の favourite topic of conversation. But we can only talk about it の中で ourselves ? it’s 悲惨な to talk about it in 前線 of the young because they get upset. They think it means we’re depressed and start recommending antidepressants, or 説, ‘Oh, don’t worry, you’ll never die!’, which just shows how stupid they are.?
But 現実に,?some of my most invigorating and cheerful conversations have been with fellow oldies about dying.
Funerals or, better, 記念の services are our 広大な／多数の／重要な social events. It must be a １０年間 or more since I went to a wedding, and I was never that keen on weddings anyway, 反して now I go to several funerals a year. They are a chance to catch up with old friends and lay bets on whose funeral we’ll be …に出席するing next.
It’s as if we’re all crammed into the 出発 lounge, waiting to see who’ll be next through the 出口 door: ‘Oh, I didn’t think it would be her, she always seemed so fit.’ Which of course is often said with a 確かな glee when someone who wore a Fitbit, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke and talked about their ビタミン 補足（する）s makes it out of the 出口 before old reprobates like me.
自然に we oldies are all in favour of 補助装置d dying ? some of us would make it 義務的な. The?only question is at what age? My parents lived to 92 and I have 絶対 no 願望（する） to emulate them; by the time they died they had no 生き残るing friends.?
Until this year?I would have said 80 was the best time to go, but that now seems a bit 切迫した. Make it 85, so I have time to de-clutter the house, as I’m always 約束ing the daughters I will do. A life 保険 actuary once told me that after 90 your chances of dying in the next year don’t noticeably 増加する. You could die at 92 or 102, who’s counting?
I remember when I was working at the Sunday 表明する in the 1980s 存在 sent to interview a famous medium called Doris Stokes. She asked if I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to be put in touch with someone ‘on the other 味方する’. I looked blank and asked, ‘Other 味方する of what?’ She said, ‘One who has passed on.’
‘Oh, you mean dead!’ I exclaimed, but she flinched at the word. ‘I meant someone you loved who has passed on.’ I racke d my brains but, honestly, couldn’t think of any. Parents? Still alive. ‘Grandparents?’ she 圧力（をかける）d. 井戸／弁護士席, yes, but 現実に both my grandfathers died before I was born and I didn’t like either of my grandmothers.
‘Could you put me in touch with my childhood dog, Zulu?’ No,?she said, she didn’t do dogs. So, somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to take a message from my maternal grandmother who, Doris 報告（する）／憶測d, said she was ‘watching over me from the other 味方する’, in other words 秘かに調査するing, as usual. Poor Doris 明白に 設立する me a 失望.
To think I was then in my late 30s and still hadn’t ‘lost’ anyone I cared about. Death was not on my レーダ. But then, in my 40s, a couple of 知識s and then a very dear friend died of 援助（する）s, and death began to move closer. I still didn’t worry about it but I could see it was a 可能性.?
And in my 50s things really sped up. Two friends died of 癌, another of alcoholism, one of a heart attack. My husband David and I used to spend every New Year in Venice with a ギャング（団） of friends and 提起する／ポーズをとる for group 発射s on the balcony. Looking at those pictures now, it’s like ‘Ten Green 瓶／封じ込めるs’ ? one より小数の of us every year.
My husband died in 2003 when he was only 59. He devel oped a 病気 called myelofibrosis and was given a bone-骨髄 移植（する） but died in the course of it, so I was 未亡人d before I was 60.?
His father and both my parents were still alive and I thought it was 不公平な that I had to listen to （民事の）告訴s from three nonagenarians while newly 未亡人d myself. But it taught me an important lesson about death: it is 完全に 無作為の. You can’t 推定する／予想する it or 計画（する） for it; it just comes.
About five years ago my Twitter 料金d started featuring 広告s for ‘funeral 保険’ and I wondered if they knew something I didn’t, but evidently not. In any 事例／患者, how mad would you have to be to spend good money on 支払う／賃金ing for your own funeral? My daughters ask occasionally whether I have any special wishes for my funeral and I say, ‘No, because I won’t be there.’
It’s not death we worry about but dying, and the big question is always: how long will it take? You used to hear of people dropping dead of a sudden 大規模な heart attack, but that seldom seems to happen any more. We all envy the late Queen dying in her bed ‘of old age’ but perhaps you have to be the Queen to be 許すd to do that.
さもなければ it’s all hospitals and 医療の 介入s which I don’t fancy at all. Why does it have to be so difficult to die? Why can’t doctors just 手渡す you a death pill when they make the 終点 diagnosis and say, ‘Take it when you feel ready.’ Why do we have to ask anyone’s 許可 to die?
Nowadays death is the last タブー. We’re not supposed to talk about it. We very rarely even see it ? except on the news. In Ireland, in the past, when Granny died, her 団体／死体 was laid out on the kitchen （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する and all the family, friends, 隣人s, even children gathered 一連の会議、交渉／完成する, so death was やめる a familiar sight. Not now. This is crazy, isn’t it?
I think we should all be more 受託するing of death, and talk about it more, not 扱う／治療する it as some embarrassing unmentionable.
After all, it will happen to us all. In fact, it is dead ありふれた.
Michael Odell
I think Barbie was 権利 to raise the question of mortality while on the dancefloor. These days, it’s while throwing 形態／調整s to, say, Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ at a wedding 歓迎会 or birthday party that I most often think, ‘Christ, my 膝s! I’m dying here!’ I’ve just turned 60 so 共同の ache is definitely an 早期に intimation that 非，不，無 of this is for ever.
I’m getting plenty of other 軽く押す／注意を引くs from the Grim Reaper, too. Like every time, approaching Birmingham New Street 駅／配置する, I pass the 抱擁する HS2 building 場所／位置 and inwardly say, ‘I’ll probably just about see that finished.’ 反して whenever I hear Elon Musk banging on about his 提案するd colonisation of 火星, I think, ‘Hmm.
I should see the first 乗組員d flight take off in 2029. But the actual 維持できる 植民地 planned for 2050? I won’t be around for that one unless I eat a lot more salad.’
I 受託する that large infrastructu re 事業／計画（する）s are a funny way to 手段 life but I distinctly remember, as a late-20-something, watching grimy-直面するd English and French workmen on the news, blinking away the dirt and shaking 手渡すs.???
The two 味方するs had just met digging the Channel Tunnel and?I thought: ‘I can’t wait to try that!’ Now I sense the world, rightly, is 存在 形態／調整d for younger 世代s.
いつかs, sitting on the （法廷の）裁判 outside my 地元の Waitrose, I think, ‘What will I leave behind?’ Only because the （法廷の）裁判 is 献身的な to a 地元の who, it says, ‘loved nothing more than to sit here and enjoy the 見解（をとる）’.?
The 見解（をとる） is of a zebra crossing. Is that a life 井戸／弁護士席 lived? And what message would I leave to the world? My favourite is still comic author Spike Milligan’s idea for a headstone:
‘I told you I was ill.’
Still, I hope Barbie didn’t get too bent out of 形態／調整 at the thought of one day going to landfill. 熟視する／熟考するing death isn’t a bad thing. A mortal 思い出の品 can work like a good G&T; it’s an 早期に evening sharpener to prime one for the fun that remains. Because, in lifetime 条件, I am definitely getting into the last evening. One can either slope off 早期に to bed or forget that niggling 膝 and 攻撃する，衝突する the disco one last time.
Mary Killen?
When I was 概略で four, a 発言する／表明する called up the stairs of our house in Northern Ireland, to ask had I cleaned my teeth. ‘Yes,’ I lied. The 発言する／表明する (of a babysitter) called 支援する:
‘Did you know that 少しの girls who tell lies will go to hell and roast on a spit for all eternity?’
The babysitter had been indoctrinated by 解雇する／砲火／射撃-and-brimstone church sermons of the 時代, but I could never ask my parents if she was 権利. That would have meant admitting I’d told a 嘘（をつく）. Moreover, if she were 権利, then it would upset my parents to think of my going to hell. And so I cringed in vague terror for years.
As the １０年間s rolled on I stopped believing in hell ? and heaven, for that 事柄. I half-heartedly believed in reincarnation for a bit but have always been too busy to think these things through so put them on the 支援する burner.
I never want to give or think about my age because I’m very suggestible. 存在 直面するd with the 冷淡な fact will make me think, ‘Hang on, if I’m that age, isn’t it about time I died?’ For the same 推論する／理由 I don’t dwell on my death.
My friend Anne, 89, says that the palms of her 手渡すs have become 乾燥した，日照りの. ‘This is what happens to apes,’ she 観察するs. ‘Their 手渡すs 結局 lose the ability to 支配する 支店s so they will 落ちる off the tree and die. It’s nature’s way.’
I’m aware that nature will want me to be dead too one day. But what’s the point of thinking about it? I can’t know what will happen to my ‘soul’ and therefore can’t 計画（する） ahead.
‘What happens when you’re dead?’
I asked the late birth guru Betty Parsons.?
It was （疑いを）晴らす to those who met Betty that she had a hotline to the ‘people upstairs’. ‘We can only perceive what we have the faculties to perceive,’ answered Betty calmly. ‘But whatever it is, I know it will be benign.’
David Aaronovitch
Readers may remember those spurious 熟考する／考慮するs that used to （人命などを）奪う，主張する men think about sex a ridiculous number of times a day. And I always used to wonder how they made their 計算／見積りs. Was it like one of those 審理，公聴会 実験（する）s where you sit in a booth and 圧力（をかける） a button every time you think you （悪事，秘密などを）発見する a squeak?
Now 69, I would find it easier to answer the question ‘How often do you think about death?’ because a truthful 返答 would be, ‘I 事実上 never don’t think about it.’
Looking 支援する, was there a moment when death overtook sex? Was it 25 years ago, when my father died? Or 12 years ago, when I very nearly bought the farm myself after a minor 操作／手術 went horribly wrong? I lay in a hospital bed for a week after coming out of ICU aware of a sort of 不明瞭 that ha d collected in my peripheral 見通し. It’s never やめる gone away.
The Grim Reaper always finds a way these days of 挿入するing himself into my consciousness. Last Thursday I got together with three old friends for dinner in a swish restaurant. The first glass of ワイン was 注ぐd and Oliver pulled out a 文書 and asked us, ‘Would you mind 証言，証人／目撃するing this? It’s my will.’
Recently YouTube’s algorithm god decided to 元気づける me up by recommending a US channel called In Memoriam, which ? year by year ? 解任するs the deaths of 30 or so famous people and the 原因（となる）s of their demise. I woke up several hours later having watched a dozen of its ビデオs, transfixed by the fact that most of them died younger than I am now.
But then I can turn anything into death.
I was playing with my adored two-year-old first grandchild the other day and suddenly there it was, the 逃亡者／はかないもの thought: ‘Will she remember me when I’m gone?’
Julie Burchill
いつか in my 40s I discovered on the internet that my 指名する featured on a 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） of people in the pu blic 注目する，もくろむ who would soon likely ‘buy the farm’, ‘go west’, ‘join the church 勝利を得た’ ? in short, die. I can’t say I was bothered.
As it was run by fellow (lesser) 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセスs, I 推定するd that it was partly wishful thinking. And I was doing 集まりs of コカイン in those days, from the age of 25 to 55, when I gave it up literally 夜通し, so it seemed fair comment.
Now I’m 64, I’d 現実に be more surprised if I featured on such a roll call; I’m nearly ten years off the marching 砕く and, for my age, fighting fit. But again, I wouldn’t be a bit upset. Because as I get older, my 恐れる of death, never 抱擁する in the first place, just a normal 量 of trepidation, has 少なくなるd. Now, when I think about dying, I 簡単に imagine the biggest embrace that ever 存在するd.
I’ve experienced the deaths of the people I loved most in さまざまな ways. My son, by 自殺, at 29. My father, at 70, dying slowly from the terrible 病気 of mesothelioma over １０年間s; my mother, also at 70, dying of a heart attack in my 武器. The same thought （機の）カム to my mind about all three: they weren’t ready to go; they had so much more they 手配中の，お尋ね者 to do. But I am ? and I don’t.
悲しみ is いつかs an 不適切な 返答 to death; when a life has been lived 完全に honestly, 完全に 首尾よく or just 完全に, the 訂正する 返答 to death’s perfect punctuation 示す is a 祝賀. I’ve had the time of my life; it would be weak, 貧困の and greedy to be 気が進まない to leave the party.
And anyway, the afterparty will be even better.
Quirky 大勝するs to the afterlife
Philippines
The Igorot tribe places 団体／死体s in 棺s nailed to cliffs, believing the 死んだ need to be as の近くに as possible to their ancestral spirits.
South Korea
Ashes are turned into bonhyan (beads) that are 陳列する，発揮するd in their family home, so they stay の近くに to loved ones in their next life.
Madagascar?
The Merina tribe?has a ritual called famadihana, or ‘turning of the bones’. Every five years, the 死んだ are 除去するd from their burial crypt and wrapped in fresh cloth while family members talk to the 団体／死体 and update them about worldly events.
Tibet?
Buddhists embrace jhator, or sky burials. 団体／死体s are 削減（する） into pieces and left on a mountain for vultures to eat. When they 飛行機で行く off, it is believed they carry the person’s soul to 楽園.
Phillipines
団体／死体s of the Tinguia n people are placed sitting in a 議長，司会を務める for around three weeks wearing their best 着せる／賦与するs, いつかs with a lit cigarette between their lips, so they can continue enjoying worldly 楽しみs in the afterlife.
?Artwork: El嘘（をつく） Allen-Eslor
ALAMY, ISTOCKPHOTO, HARRY BORDEN, AP/WARNER BROS,?
