Today marks the start of #DyingMatters week & #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek, intersecting concerns more closely entwined by #Covid. So many have suffered losses--loved ones, jobs, opportunities. So many feel lost. The rush for "normality" salts wounds where no such state is possible

The other night I wept at a beer advert. It showed happy people embracing and had some kind of tag line proclaiming "we will be together again". No we won't. For 150,000+ in the UK and their families and friends this moment of opening up rams home the reality of irremediable loss

Nor are the bereaved alone in grief & confusion. Studies are only just beginning to chart the scale & depth of the mental health toll of the pandemic. As ever many of the hardest hit were already more vulnerable because of age and pre-existing inequalities https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/28/sharp-rise-in-mental-illness-among-those-whose-income-fell-away-during-covid

So this would be a good week to check in with friends, family & yourself, to ask for help if needed. And it is always a good week to talk about dying. In failing to do so, we grant death more power to disrupt, sometimes even hasten it or miss out on choices of how to die