And so, we reach the end...

Do we ever get to the point of accepting the inevitability of death? Or are we permanently outraged by this one certainty in life?

Lauren McMenemy came up with the idea of this year-long project to explore our relationship with death. I was a bit nervous about joining in. Not because it involved thinking about death, but because it would involve learning to use something new — Substack. This would be a useful challenge for my ageing brain, I thought.

So I took the leap and emailed Lauren. Now, after a fascinating year, and 26 beautiful pieces of writing, our project ended at the Winter Solstice. It has indeed proved to be a challenge. But not just for the technical learning. I am left wondering:

Do we ever get to the point of accepting the inevitability of death? Or are we permanently outraged by this one certainty in life?

Life has ebbed and flowed alongside the project during the year, leading to similar ebb and flow in the project team membership, as people had to deal with various life challenges (thank you to all those who have been involved, particularly Lauren, who started the whole thing off, as well as Irene Lofthouse, Wendy Sacks Jones, Regina G Beach and Leah Royden for volunteering as editors for this project.)

It is this mirroring of life’s journey, though, that has been the most interesting and (rewarding) part of the project for me.

For example, during a (brief) lull in our collective energy, we wondered if we should bring the project to a close. After all, a year-long project was quite an undertaking, perhaps we had taken on too much?

Then one very wise person (Leah, I think) pointed out that the project was merely reflecting the process we go through as humans, when we try to grasp the reality of death:

We make a resolution to think about it, but then, well, life gets in the way, and our mortality is so very, very, very hard to grasp. Easier to put it off, and so most of us do. Until the day we are given no choice but to face it. And then we can be so unprepared.

This reminded me of the funeral of a much-loved elderly friend when I overheard:

“How could this have happened to her? She was so young! And she had an allotment for twenty years!!”

(I mean, she was eighty-three. And I don’t think anyone has ever claimed that working an allotment is the key to eternal life.)

So, it is worth spending time reflecting on mortality now, no? If only to help us focus on the moments of joy that make up a life well lived. On the allotment perhaps. Or wherever and whenever else might suit you…

—Margaret Kenna

Margaret is a member of the Memento Mori Editorial team and an author.