#113 Keith Page: Dying Wisely-Stuff You Need to Know About Death

Show Notes  

Are you ready for yet another conversation about things we are not supposed to talk about? We’ve done religion and politics, now I want to learn about dying and how we can best prepare for the inevitable.

My guest today is an expert on the subject and, no, he is not a mortician. My special guest is Keith Page, a funeral celebrant who works closely with families in the midst of a death. Keith’s focus is to prepare people of all ages of how to manage the entire process of dying.

Let me read a piece Keith gave me before the show:

“Death is a vast mystery but there are two things we can say about it: it is absolutely certain that we will die, but what is uncertain is when or how we will die. The only sure thing we have, then, is this uncertainty about the hour of our death - which we use as an excuse to postpone facing death directly. 

Instead of dealing with it as a normal part of life, death is treated as an unexpected emergency; something that happens when the medical community fails. We always die of something - as though if it weren’t for that disease or accident we could have lived on.

Very often those who take time to plan arrangements with death also end up having made new arrangements with life. After they know they are going to die, people often live and die well. We’ve all heard stories of what happens when people find out they have a limited time to live. Many finally start living well. They simplify their lives, spend time with those they love, slow down and get around to doing many things they had put off.” 

So that’s our topic for the day.

Taken from 'Tibetan Book of Living and Dying’ by Sogyal Rinpoche and ‘From Beginning to End - the Rituals of Our Lives’ by Robert Fulghum. 

You can contact Keith Page at [e-mail]

Also check out www.deathcafe.com

For more with Charlie Hedges please visit www.thenextchapter.life