How to Guarantee a Beautiful Death for Yourself
You know you’re going to die… right? Just like I’m going to. Just like every single person we love is going to.
So, why aren’t you preparing to make your big day as beautiful as it should be?
What? You don’t think death can be beautiful? Well, I respectfully disagree — and I have 3 real-life stories to back that up.
As explained by the acclaimed neurosurgeon and thinker, Oliver Sacks:
“It is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”
There is no life event for which you’re given as much time to prepare as you are with death. Yet, we allow unhealthy cultural attitudes to stop us from dying our own deaths. For example, within certain UK demographics, up to 83% of people may die without having a will.
This can leave money and assets stuck with banks and the government — as if either of those two need any more of our hard-earned possessions. On top of this, claiming those valuables back can often cost loved ones money.
Dying unprepared just isn’t on.
So, here are 3 stories about people who owned their deaths, turning them into events of beauty and hope for those they left behind.
1. Oliver Sacks became the love story the world needed
Oliver Sacks was an acclaimed neurologist, former bodybuilder, and writer of a book on which an academy-award nominated film, starring Robin Williams, was based.
Dr Sacks was also celibate for over 3 decades — thanks, in part, to his mother’s disapproval of his homosexuality. This haunted him.
A man with a thousand-megawatt brain and a heart big enough for all humanity was without love himself.
But nearing his latter years and contending with a terminal cancer diagnosis, Oliver Sacks embraced the life-affirming philosophy he’d always preached.
At the age of 77, Dr Sacks began a romantic relationship with author, Bill Hayes. They remained together until Dr Sacks’ death. Reflecting on his impending passing, Oliver Sacks wrote in the New York Times:
“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved…”
2. Stanley Tookie Williams went from taking lives to saving them
On the other end of the spectrum is Stanley Tookie Williams — co-founder of The Crips, which was dubbed the world’s deadliest street gang.
He and the gang were responsible for at least 5000 deaths. Stanley Tookie Williams was not a man many people admired—and with good reason.
Yet, by the time he died (by lethal injection), Tookie Williams had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 4 times.
Tookie Williams decided that although his environment had helped him live a life of violent crime, he would not die a violent criminal.
And like that — during prison years often spent in solitary confinement — Tookie Williams shed the title of Grim Reaper and became an angel of light.
He became an anti-gang activist who is estimated to have saved some 50,000+ lives — all of whom sent emails thanking him for the feat.
3. A wife realised her dream by living according to her dying husband’s philosophy
Of course, death is not significant only when it happens to famous (or infamous) people. That’s why my third story is about Jennifer Fox and her inspirational, dead husband.
When Jennifer Fox’s husband of 26 years was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he had one message:
“We must turn this negative into a positive.”
Judging by the aplomb with which he encouraged his wife, Mr Fox was likely referring to the cancer diagnosis (and not death itself) as the “negative”.
Jennifer Fox was understandably heartbroken when her husband died. However, she soon remembered his words, and they encouraged her to change career and become a palliative nurse.
In dying with positivity and purpose, Jennifer Fox’s husband gave her a remarkable gift — the belief to live fully.
“Why are you telling me this, you morbid weirdo?”
I’m not trying to deny the difficult nature of death. I’m telling you this because the only way to make death less difficult is to embrace and live ready for it.
I’m telling you this because I recently learned about Farewill, a tech startup that’s redesigning our broken relationship with death — starting with straightforward, affordable wills for the 21st century.
I was in two minds about publishing this article — seeing as I’m a professional writer, who’s usually paid to talk about a company. But no one’s paying me to write this.
My chance encounter with Farewill CEO, Dan Garrett, reminded me (as I’ve always believed) that some things transcend money and commerce.
I learned of his time in Japan, spent studying the needlessly punishing experiences of the old, dying and left-behind… Simply because society refuses to look death in the eye.
I’m telling you this because if we take control of our relationship with death, our lives will be so much better for it.
I legally will—starting with naming the lucky sucker who’ll inherit my guitar (Betty) and a collection of poems I began writing when I was 11.
I highly recommend you do the same.
