Dying well: what is neglected needs to be put right

How each of us can prepare ourselves and those we leave behind.

Matthew Hutton

Matthew is the author of Your Last Gift – Getting Your Affairs in Order.

A group of grieving friends with their hands on each others backs.

The Good Funeral Guide on Unsplash.

In their November 2023 Theos report Love, Grief and Hope: Emotional responses to death and dying in the UK, Madeline Pennington and Nathan Mladin produce the surprising finding that, over the past year, one quarter of Brits had thought about their own death at least once a week. They go on to consider related emotional responses, chiefly fear. But, however often we think about death (maybe never), what do we do to prepare for the certainty of it, when we are used to making all sorts of preparations for practically everything else in our lives?

First, we can, without being morbid, live our lives in broad terms in the consciousness that we are mortal (and, if you will forgive me as a classicist for delving into Latin, living ‘sub specie aeternitatis’ which means ‘from the standpoint of eternity’). Second, there are things we can do in terms of getting our house in order, both for our own peace of mind and for the benefit of our loved ones and those we leave behind. This is both spiritually and materially, though I would want to argue as a Christian that the whole of life (whether in this world or in the next) combines both aspects.

Having had quite a feisty and competitive brother/sister relationship (with not a little ribbing from her about my own faith), we came to enjoy the warmest possible sibling love for and appreciation of each other.

My dear sister Debbie died aged just 49 in July 2005. She had telephoned me only eight months before to tell me of the grim diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer, saying that there were two things she needed to sort out: her will and her relationship with God. I replied (as a Christian and as a private client lawyer) that we could sort both those out. I referred Debbie to a vicar I knew in a church round the corner from where she lived. She was a bit hesitant, saying that, having kept God at arm’s length for all her life, wasn’t it a bit presumptuous now to be knocking on the vicar’s door? I suggested that she should think of it from his point of view, in terms of job satisfaction: that after all was precisely what he was there to do, telling people about God and helping them to find a personal faith.

So that’s just what she did, coming to that faith herself following time with the vicar, with me and with other friends, in the February. And she died as a self-proclaimed Christian five months later. For me, the most precious thing apart from knowing that she would be with Jesus forever was this: having had quite a feisty and competitive brother/sister relationship (with not a little ribbing from her about my own faith), we came to enjoy the warmest possible sibling love for and appreciation of each other.

Second, my mother, whose ideas of Christianity were never terribly clear, though she was a very faithful listener of my sermons, came to faith (as I saw it) just 12 days before she died in May 2010. It was at a home communion given by one of the local clergy team that, as she received the bread and/or the wine (I forget which), a most powerful voice within my spirit told me that she had received Jesus. And that night, by way of confirmation, my wife Annie had a very clear dream of my mother (it had to be her, wearing her most distinctive pink kaftan) dancing at the foot of the Cross.

We lived just five minutes from Mum and, again, my early evening visits to see her, to chat, to read from the Bible and to pray were somehow transformed. While I am not sure that she had the same clear consciousness of having moved from darkness to light as had Debbie, I was quite clear that she had – and noted in my prayers at her funeral that at the end she had received Jesus.

Third is my very close friend Jim who died aged just 67 in November 2020: I had talked to him about the Christian faith on a number of occasions, but he simply didn’t want to know. Then just one month before he died, in a telephone conversation with him in hospital Jim asked me to explain it, from a position of dire physical need and wanting to hear. I didn’t know how ill he was and, having explained the essence of Christian belief in very simple terms, prayed with him over the telephone.

As it happens, Jim survived another month at home, during which time I was able to visit him four times and (now having been ordained) give him and his Christian wife Judi Home Communion, as well as pointing him to and talking about Mark’s Gospel and praying with him. His new faith led to a new intensity in our friendship. Jim was quite clear about his new relationship with Jesus, seeing himself as the lost sheep, on which I preached at his funeral, before (as a profoundly moving experience) conducting his burial.

None of us of course knows for sure what happens after death. But Christians are by God’s grace given this ‘sure and certain hope’ of an eternity to be spent with Christ in God’s new creation. And it’s the clear Christian message that that eternity starts now, when we come to faith. There’s a new relationship with God in Christ and, which is my experience, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially precious when those folk are close to us anyway.

And then of course, perhaps most importantly, what is broken needs to be put right.

That’s the spiritual aspect. What of the material – by which I mean all the practical ‘stuff’: those who are left behind having to sort out our possessions, Inheritance Tax where payable and a whole host of other things? It is a subject touched on in the Bible, perhaps surprisingly. Consider Paul writing to Timothy that a person should provide for their relatives and especially close family), which I take it would include post-death as well as lifetime provision. And then supremely of course Jesus in providing for his dear mother by entrusting her to his beloved disciple John.

In this context, I can do no more than make a few pointers, which with other suggestions I develop in my book.

There are what I call ‘The Three Essentials’: Lasting Powers of Attorney in case of mental incapacity (for both property & financial affairs and health & welfare), Wills (including the all-important choice of executors) and funeral arrangements. Just 44 per cent of UK adults have made a will.

Then there’s a host of other things, including appointing guardians for any minor children, providing for dependent relatives and making arrangements for pets. What about access to digital assets, for example? Let alone dealing with things about the home.

And then of course, perhaps most importantly, what is broken needs to be put right - relationships, where forgiveness could be sought or given. And, more widely, are there people you want to spend more time with, things you want to do or places to visit?

My suggestion is that dying well embraces first of all the peace which comes from the belief that Jesus has died the death my sins deserve and consequently a restored relationship with God our Heavenly Father; and second, making what practical arrangements we can in advance, to ease the stress of those we leave behind in sorting out our affairs.

Matthew Hutton is the author of Your Last Gift – Getting Your Affairs in Order.

Article

Comment

Politics

25 September 2024

5 min read

Exploring Labour’s parameters of hope

At the party’s conference, meeting mayors and old friends rekindle a restless hope.

David Barclay

David is a partner with the Good Faith Partnership, collaborating on solutions to social problems.

A group of four people stand in front of an even banner, smiling

Labour mayors smiling, despite the weather.

@UKHospKate.

If weather can set the tone for events then the meteorological omens for the Labour Party Conference this year were hardly promising. By the time I’d made it to Liverpool Dockside from the train station I was already soaked and cold, and wondering if anything our new Government was going to say would cut through the gloom and kindle some much-needed hope and optimism.

The downbeat mood of bedraggled conference-goers searching for umbrellas felt like a pretty fair reflection of the wider public as a whole. A recent piece of research found that ‘broken’ was the most common word used to describe the state of the country, and if Keir Starmer had a honeymoon period as Prime Minister it has clearly already long passed. We have become used to politics as a force of chaos and division, and as the events of this summer revealed all too starkly, this state of our public life has left our communities highly vulnerable to the forces of hate and violence that lie closer to the surface than most of us like to admit to ourselves.

Yet my experience over 48 hours in Liverpool did give me cause for optimism, even if that came from some slightly unexpected places.

Mayors are uniquely unburdened by the departmental silos of Westminster and Whitehall, as well as having a direct mandate from the people and communities they are serving.

One of those was the energy of new MPs. Amongst the large intake of Labour MPs there are some seriously impressive people with a vitality and creativity that has been sorely missing from British politics in recent years. I got the chance to speak to Josh MacAlister, the new MP for Whitehaven and Workington, who is a case in point. Josh set up Frontline, a graduate social worker training programme modelled on Teach First which has had huge success in boosting recruitment into a vital part of our public life. He was then asked by the last Government to lead a landmark review into Children’s Social Care, which is without doubt one of the most broken aspects of British politics with private companies making obscene profits from providing terrible care to vulnerable children, leaving a trail of human misery and financial ruin for local Government in its wake. Now he is looking to put the review’s recommendations into practice with a Government that seems far more likely to spark radical change in this area than it’s predecessor. As a foster carer myself who has seen the human cost of the current system up close and personal, meeting Josh gave me real hope that we can do better for the most vulnerable children in our country.

The other politicians who seemed very much in the limelight in Liverpool were Mayors, who now cover more and more of our English cities and regions and are taking an increasingly significant role in our public conversations. I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with the former Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees, and saw first-hand the incredible impact that place-based political leaders can create by convening different leaders and organisations from across the public sector, business and charities around common goals.

Mayors are uniquely unburdened by the departmental silos of Westminster and Whitehall, as well as having a direct mandate from the people and communities they are serving. So seeing increasing amounts of resource and powers flow to Mayors is undoubtedly another cause for hope.

One of my areas of passion is refugee and asylum inclusion, and I was part of several conversations over the Conference on how Mayors and other regional actors could play a bigger role in this policy area. As Marvin Rees used to say as Mayor of Bristol, city leaders see the issue of migration and human mobility in a fundamentally different way to national leaders, because nation-states are defined by borders and therefore constantly obsessed with controlling them, whereas cities by definition exist due to the movement of people, good and ideas, and are therefore much more interested in how policy can lead to greater welcome and connection in order to harness the strengths of having a diverse population. It is this kind of mindset and perspective shift that having stronger Mayors could bring into British politics, and to me at least it feels like a breath of fresh air.

History teaches us that really significant change happens rarely from the top down but rather through constellations of leaders and organisations with similar worldviews but distinct resources and perspectives.

My final source of optimism for change came not for politicians at all but from the friends and colleagues I was able to catch up with or bump into. Having been around the world of politics for nearly two decades, things like Party Conferences are a lovely opportunity to touch base with people I might not otherwise get to see.

Over lunch with an old friend from the Bristol Mayor’s Office, we were reflecting on how being part of a wider political movement can create opportunities for collaboration and mutual support over the years and in different professional and personal contexts. As someone whose ancestors were actively involved in the Abolition Movement and the Clapham Sect, I often find myself thinking about the social dynamics of change and how movements and coalitions grow and evolve. History teaches us that really significant change happens rarely from the top down but rather through constellations of leaders and organisations with similar worldviews but distinct resources and perspectives. At a time when it often feels like party politics lacks the imagination and courage to really answer the demands of the time, I find real hope in this idea that we can all organise ourselves and our institutions for change, and we all have a responsibility to build a stronger web of relationships to make that happen.

So, if like me you are longing for some positive change in this country, I think the Labour Party Conference did have some real signs of hope. But it’s not a passive hope that somehow having ‘the grownups in charge’ will by itself guarantee real progress. Instead, it’s a restless, active hope that says nothing will happen without us making it happen, and particularly joining the dots between people of goodwill to build something better than our status quo.