Great Ideas: Death and Dying
| “It’s extraordinary that so much time is spent educating people about birth and sex, but so little about this equally profound thing that happens to everyone." | Report on a survey of peoples' attitude to death and dying. From The Irish Times. | |
| "NEARLY 30,000 citizens die each year [in Ireland]". So perhaps we should spend a little more time on this issue | Op-Ed | |
| Thinking about death makes you more appreciative of the present | ||
| WANT a better 2016? Try thinking more about your impending demise. | Link | From nytimes.com |
| Perspectives on life and death | ||
| The New Faces Of Death is a series of profiles and interviews in which Dirge is celebrating women passionately involved in the Death Positivity / Death Acceptance movement. | Link | Interview with mortician Amber Carvaly |
| The Order of the Good Death: Welcome to Your Mortality | Link | orderofthegooddeath.com |
| An Examination of the Relationship Between Food and Death in Rituals, Culture, Religion and Society. | Link | nourishingdeath.wordpress.com |
| A child's experience of death | Link | Blogpost from huffingtonpost.com |
| Death - our greatest delusion | Link | From Veratasium. YouTube 8 mins |
| Lessons of Immortality and Mortality From My Father, Carl Sagan | Link | From nymag.com/ |
| The strange life of the immortal jellyfish | Link | The Earth's only immortal species is a tiny transparent jellyfish capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature stage after having reached maturity, as Dr Karl Kruszelnicki explains. |
| Family Fortunes: "I would prefer to buried without a coffin - just tied to a board" | Link | "But if this is complicated take the lid off!" Quirky obituary from The Irish Times |
| Leavetaking: The nurse rings and suddenly I realise my mother is dead | Link | A daughter writes about finally getting the dreaded phonecall. From The Irish Times. |
| What’s it like to lose your mother? | Link | The day a parent dies will age your bones by decades but it has its own inexplicable beauty. From The Irish Times. |
| "This Self-Penned Obituary Is One Of The Best We've Ever Read". High praise. | "Walt was preceded in death by his tonsils and adenoids in 1935; a spinal disc in 1974; a large piece of his thyroid gland in 1988; and his prostate on March 27, 2000. " From io9.com | |
| "We are going to die - and that makes us the lucky ones" | Richard Dawkins reading from his book "Unweaving the rainbow". YouTube. 4 mins | |
| Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer | Link | From nytimes.com |
| Reporter Scott Simon tweeted his thoughts from his dying mother’s bedside. | The tweets went viral at the time. He later recorded those tweets for this animation. | |
| Let's talk about dying - Peter Saul | YouTube courtesy of TED. 13 mins | |
| Alan Watts on Death, in a Beautiful Animated Short Film | "Death is swept under the carpet in our culture". YouTube. 4 mins | |
| The dying are the great appreciators of this world | The perspective of those about to die in a hospice. Text-based from philosophersmail.com | |
| My Own Life: Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer | Writing in the nytimes.com | |
| Top five regrets of the dying | From The Guardian | |
I do not fear death |
Roger Ebert writes about his own impending death | |
| This old man | Roger Angell reminisces about life. Text-based from newyorker.com | |
| Facing up to the truth about life before death | "A few months ago I had a medium- to long-term future, but now I don’t – and coming to terms with that has brought many challenges". From Bridget Megarry The Irish times | |
‘Death’ on the Hudson river – Three things I learned while my plane crashed |
YouTube courtesy of TED. 5 mins | |
| Prepare for a good end of life | YouTube courtesy of TED. 6 mins | |
| Matthew O'Reilly: "Am I dying?" The honest answer. | YouTube courtesy of TED. 6 mins | |
| Lord Bragg tells us that he would consider taking his own life when the time comes | From The Guardian | |
| Carpe Diem - famous scene from Dead Poets Society | YouTube 3 mins | |
| "The Snowman" - a wonderful story about life and death for kids | Classic 27 minute cartoon. YouTube. | |
| "I miss him, but it's okay" | This video was made as a tribute to Andy by Andy's daughter Alex who is 10yrs old. She speaks about her Dad's death and how her mam told her the truth about her dad's death. YouTube 12 mins | |
| Why are we here? | Famous folk give their thoughts. Text-based from brainpickings.org | |
| This Guy’s Wife Got Cancer, So He Did Something Unforgettable. | He photographed it. Text-based from viralnova.com | |
| At what moment are you dead? | TED-Ed. YouTube 6 mins. Pretty cool. | |
| There’s a better way to die, and architecture can help | Link | The way we die is changing, and the way we build for dying ... well, maybe that should too. YouTube 4 mins |
Living with grief: A conversation between men |
Link | Liam Neeson and Anderson Cooper have a heart-to-heart about living with grief after the death of a loved one. Not your usual entertainment interview. YouTube 20 mins via TED |
| How Can We Prepare For A Graceful Death? | Link | At the end of our lives, what do we most wish for? BJ Miller is a palliative care physician who thinks about how to create a dignified, graceful end of life for his patients. |
| On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi the Torajan people live With Dead Bodies for Weeks—Or Years—Is radition | Link | 5 min video from National Geographic |
| There really is no wake like an Irish wake | Link | Locals in Falveys Bar, Killorglin, Kerry, Ireland paid tribute to a friend. Vimeo 4 mins |
| Randy Pausch: The Last Lecture | YouTube 10 mins | |
| Professor Pausch sits down with Jeff Zaslow and discusses his turmoil in dealing with his impending death and how he's leaving his family. | YouTube 5 mins | |
| Within this generation, an extra 30 years have been added to our life expectancy — and these years aren’t just a footnote or a pathology. In this talk, Jane Fonda asks how we can think about this new phase of our lives. | Jane Fonda on TED. YouTube 12 mins | |
| Resources/ websites | ||
| So what is palliative care? | Link | From vimeo.com 2 mins |
| Compassionate Communities.ie Encouraging people to talk about dying and loss. |
Link | "...because death and dying is everyone's business" |
| www.thinkahead.ie Plan ahead for how you might like your life to end |
Includes a nice introductory video | |
| dyingmatters.org | Link | Dying Matters is a coalition of 30,000 members across England and Wales which aims to help people talk more openly about dying, death and bereavement, and to make plans for the end of life. |
| hospicefoundation.ie | Lots of useful leaflets and short videos | |
| Is this why people hope that you 'rest in peace'? | twitterpic | |
| Turn your body into a tree after you die | Cool idea - what a lovely memorial | |
| What you really think when you read the death notices. | Link | Cartoon (it's the fifth one down) from the new yorker |
| Websites for data on death and life expectancy | ||
| Leading cause of death by country | From vox.com | |
| View selected causes of death and population dynamics for Ireland | Link | worldlifeexpectancy.com |
National cancer registry of Ireland |
Link | ncri.ie |