Death is not something that we enjoy talking about, at least not seriously (the jokes are innumerable), and funerals are even less popular as a topic of serious conversation. Joseph Bayly called death The Last Thing We Talk About. Yet such discussions ought not be left to the end, for if we have time to discuss it at the end (we often don’t since such appointments are rarely made in advance!), we are often in the least objective place to do so. Pain, grief, and sorrow typically color the thinking of the one dying as well as those closest to him. But think of it we should, and that for several reasons.
