Dying: A Memoir (Cory Taylor)
Cory Taylor was an award-winning Australian writer who died from melanoma-related brain cancer at 61. She completed her memoir “Dying” in the space of a few weeks. On why she decided to write the memoir, Taylor relates: “I am making a shape for my death, so that I, and others, can see it clearly. And I am making dying bearable for myself. […] For while my body is careering towards catastrophe, my mind is elsewhere, concentrated on this other, vital task, which is to tell you something meaningful before I go.” The very beginning and the very end of the memoir is where you’ll get her thoughts on death and mortality, the middle section being dedicated mostly to her thoughts on family and childhood.
Here were some of my favourite quotes:
“For this is one of the most lamentable consequences of our reluctance to talk about death. We have lost our common rituals and our common language for dying, and must either improvise, or fall back on traditions about which we feel deeply ambivalent. I am talking especially about people like me, who have no religious faith. For us it seems that dying exposes the limitations of secularism like nothing else.”
“For so many of us, death has become the unmentionable thing, a monstrous silence.” “Despite the ubiquity of death, it seems strange that there are so few opportunities to publicly discuss dying.”
“The problem with reverie is that you always assume you know how the unlived life turns out. And it is always a better version of the life you’ve actually lived. The other life is more significant and purposeful. It is impossibly free of setbacks and mishaps. This split between the dream and the reality can be the cause of intense dissatisfaction at times. But I am no longer plagued by restlessness. Now I see the life I’ve lived as the only life, a singularity, saturated with its oneness. To envy the life of the alternative me […] seems like the purest kind of folly.”
“I have heard it said that modern dying means dying more, dying over longer periods, enduring more uncertainty, subjecting ourselves and our families to more disappointments and despair. As we are enabled to live longer, we are also condemned to die longer.”
A few months before she started her memoir, Taylor was asked to appear on a television program called You Can’t Ask That, where they pick taboo/controversial subjects and ask Australians to submit questions about them. Taylor answered 10 of the most common questions the program collected about dying. While obviously not a formal questionnaire, I like to think that this is a pretty good representation of the 10 things we want most to ask someone who is dying:
1. Do you have a bucket list?
2. Have you considered suicide?
3. Have you become religious?
4. Are you scared?
5. Is there anything good about dying?
6. Do you have any regrets?
7. Do you believe in an afterlife?
8. Are you happy or depressed?
9. Are you more likely to take risks now, given that you’re dying anyway?
10. What will you miss the most and how would you like to be remembered?
Dying: A Memoir is slight, beautifully written, and will certainly be enjoyed by other non-believers.