One Last Thing: How to live with the end in mind

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While living with her diagnosis and facing the extreme changes that come along with a progressive terminal illness, Wendy wrote two Sunday Times-bestselling books, went skydiving for the first time and supports multiple dementia advocacy groups in the UK. She is known for talking about living with dementia, but now – while she is still able to – she explores dying with it.

Well it felt like the natural way forward… what better subject to choose for my final book than planning for the future, assisted dying and death? You can’t get more final! Throughout writing this book I’ve realised that death is treated like dementia - it’s a taboo subject for many, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. The one thing that is guaranteed to happen to 100% of the world’s population is given so little value. What other thing affects the entire world’s population?According to a 2021 report, Public Attitudes to Death and Dying in the UK, 51 per cent of people don’t think we talk enough about death and dying as a society. While 70 per cent feel notionally comfortable enough to do so, only 14 per cent actually have. Many of us still haven’t made a will. There are now initiatives, like so-called death cafés, along with end of life doulas, “to help people make the most of their finite lives”. This is all indicative of progress, Mitchell agrees, but it’s still too slow, and not enough. “To properly prepare for your death,” she argues, “really is the greatest gift you can give your children”. on the topic of assisted dying in the UK, those fighting to make it legal and those vehemently opposed to its practice,

There is something uniquely disquieting about opening what’s billed as “the final book” of an author who, although alive, is preparing for imminent death. One Last Thing by Wendy Mitchell is just such a book. I say “imminent”, but only in the sense that as Mitchell recounts her rapid physical and intellectual declinem due to young-onset vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, she knows that time, her time, is running out. This clear-eyed call to arms makes it evident that Mitchell will do her damnedest to die on her own terms. Wendy discusses choices and possibilities, explores the views of both those who support and oppose assisted dying, of carers and politicians. As Wendy reminds us: That might sound daunting and morbid, but the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. “To have no autonomy, no independence, to be totally reliant on others for when and how I do things, is not the life today’s Wendy wants for future Wendy,” Mitchell says firmly. She adds that she doesn’t want sympathy: fair enough. But I hope, instead, she will accept the gratitude of everyone who reads this urgent, humane manifesto on how to care for and about those edging towards the finality of death. You have inspired and moved us all with your first book Somebody I Used to Know about your diagnosis with early onset dementia, illuminated and demystified a disease many fear, but little understand with What I Wish People Knew About Dementia. Why did you decide to write One Last Thing? Today, a simple task, like remembering to water the flowers that she loves, requires foresight and canniness. The same goes for remembering to drink and eat: she has sound alerts saved on her phone to prompt her. Over the past nine years, much has changed, yet one thing has remained doggedly in place: a determination to live in the now – while also planning for a future that’s been cruelly accelerated. It hasn’t been easy for Mitchell, now 67, to get here, nor has the path been a linear one.Before Mitchell was diagnosed, she was afraid of so much. “Now, when I lie in the dark, there isn’t any worry whatsoever. And that’s because I think, ‘Crikey, if I can face dementia, why should I worry about anything else?’” If the last nine years have taught her anything, it’s the importance of time and how not to take it for granted. “The only certainty we have in life is this moment. No one knows what’s round the corner. People always say, when I retire I’ll do this, or next year I’ll do that. And I say to them, ‘Why not now?’ Because, if it’s that important, don’t wait for the future, because it might not come.”