Zach Moss
15 May 2015
Dying Matters – the elephant in the room
‘If you say there is an elephant in the room, you mean that is an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about.’Then I found this poem: There’s an elephant in the room. It is large and squatting, so it is hard to get around it. Yet we squeeze by with, “How are you?” and “I’m fine,” and a thousand other forms of trivial chatter. We talk about the weather. We talk about work. We talk about everything else, except the elephant in the room. There’s an elephant in the room. We all know it’s there. We are thinking about the elephant as we talk together. It is constantly on our minds. For, you see, it is a very large elephant. It has hurt us all. But we don’t talk about the elephant. Oh, please, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. For if I cannot, then you are leaving me…. alone…. in a room…. with an elephant “Elephant in the Room” (author unknown). The end of our lives is something we often don’t want to think about, let alone talk about. However, next week 18th-24th May 2015 Dying Matters are holding their annual awareness week about end-of-life rights and choices. My Life, My Decision will be holding events all over the country as part of the week, including: Tues 19th Oxford Town Hall – Living Well, Dying Well: Let’s have the last laugh. Find out more here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1381690425463033/ Tues 19th Age UK South Tyneside – Talk, Plan, Live – with coffee! Find out more here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1573893346203513/ Wed 20th South Lakeland – Talk, Plan, Live Roadshow. Find out more here: https://www.facebook.com/events/758764420908034/ Wed 20th Lancashire University – Lunchtime Lecture series with Esther Nimmo and Janet Ross from our project! Find out more here https://www.facebook.com/events/439582366201986/ Thurs 21st East London Death Cafe – a free and open discussion about all things to do with death and dying. Find out more here https://www.facebook.com/events/984943031517747/ Here at Age UK Hillingdon, we will be holding monthly ‘Planning Ahead’ surgeries to provide on-going support. We feel it is important to encourage people to talk openly about dying, death and bereavement and are offering a drop-in service to allow you to pop along and ask questions you may have and may not feel comfortable asking.
You no longer now need to face the elephant in the room alone!!
