It is now almost 14 years since my husband passed over. He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain tumour after demonstrating symptoms somewhat similar to dementia. However our very understanding physician who knew the patient and suspected the truth, immediately ordered various brain investigations which identified the condition as being glioblastoma.

I recently travelled to Australia to be in a new relationship and after five months we bought a house in an area we liked and started to get to know the local community and what shops to go to get whatever we needed. We registered for the local doctors surgery and notified all the official places of our new address. Within a month of our being in the new house, my partner was admitted to hospital. 

There is a famous book on pregnancy and birth that explores what to expect when you are expecting. It details the unfolding physical and emotional landscape that comes with pregnancy and birth. Somehow dying, the other half of the cycle of birth and death, is buried under our social and medical focus on extending life instead of including and welcoming death as equally as we do birth.