Today marks the start of "Dying Matters Awareness Week", an annual campaign supported by the National Council for Palliative Care. The hope is to get people talking and thinking more about death – about how they, and their loved ones, might have a "good death".
The idea of a good death is not new. Anthropologists, historians, and other social scientists have long documented the variety of ways in which a good death is achieved. Crucial to this is not only how someone dies, but how that death is commemorated. In many cases, to include Britain today, a good death has to involve a good funeral. Ritual, even in this postmodern age, is flourishing. And whether or not we identify as religious such ritual, it seems, still counts.
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