This is a photo I took of my parents’ joint funeral. Unbelievably, they both died in the same week, in their sleep, aged 86 and 84. My dad had had a stroke a year previously and hadn’t been doing too well, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected…

Berenice looked horrified. In the group I was running, she was coming to terms with the idea that she really needed to speak to her parents about the fact they were coming towards the end of their lives…

Recently, Jane Fonda, aged 85, spoke of one of the essential aspects of ageing gracefully. What could it be, I wondered – staying healthy? Keeping moving? Having younger people around you? Actually, it was none of that.

Simona was despairing “I’ve been left such a mess, I can’t believe it! How do I even begin, when it’s the very last thing I want to do!” She was expressing her horror at the myriad of things she was having to deal with after her mother had died…

One of the top 5 regrets of the dying is “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.” Given that we never know when our life is going to come to an end, it’s a really good idea to not only express our feelings, but by doing that, keep our relationships…

Many years ago, I was visiting a friend’s house, having just heard that her husband was in his last few days. She was not a close friend, but I knew them both as part of the Quaker community…

“What shall I say?” asked Howard, obviously uncomfortable about telling his 7- and 9-year-old that their grandfather had just died. They had only seen him the other day, as usual, and he had seemed his usual cheerful self…

There are two words that, generally speaking, in the Western world we don’t like to mention much. One of them you will probably not be surprised by. But the other you might well be. Given my specialty is end of life planning, you can easily imagine what…

Sylvia was becoming more and more frail. It was clear that, though in good spirits, her body was nearing the end of life. She kept having visits to the hospital and had recently had a fall which had precipitated one of these. As women 60 and over, we will often…

Marie’s son was distraught. He had told his mother he would have the doctors do everything they could – but now they were saying that they didn’t know how long she would be able to breathe on her own without the tube, nor did they know…