Preface
In the course of putting together the first edition of this book, issues about dying and death became starkly real when my wife, Myfanwy, to whose memory the book is dedicated, suddenly and entirely unexpectedly died of a heart attack, aged sixty-nine. There was no warning, no time to prepare, no opportunity to say goodbye. It was a devastating experience. Never before had the full force of the expression ‘my other half’ come home to me.
Still conscious of that awful day, I have continued to reflect on the challenge of having to face up to the unexpected death of a loved one, and on the importance of thinking and talking about death and dying beforehand, rather than treating it as the ‘great unmentionable’.
Perhaps the most important lesson to learn from that painful episode is that since death is both inevitable and unpredictable, we all owe it – not only to ourselves but to our loved ones – to be prepared. To that end, we offer this book.