Taboo around death should bite the dust

WE NEED to talk more about death. I’m in the last weeks of my life and it’s been a revelation. I don’t mean the feelings of sickness caused by my stage four kidney cancer and the powerful drugs I’m forced to take, or the sadness about leaving behind my family and friends. Those are both on my mind much of the time, as you'd expect.

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But what’s surprised me most is how much better in myself I feel since finally moving into a hospice near my home in Kent a week or so back. I began to feel better immediately. More positive. I feel at peace here, even though ’m not a religious person.

I know that I’ve reached the end of my life but I’m quite sanguine about it.

Despite everything, I'm happy to go now and a lot of that is due to the people who work here, because they make dying as peaceful and pain-free as possible.