We are lucky to understand and contemplate our own deaths, so that we can live the life we want now. I can only hope to leave my life gracefully and without regret.

Happy to face the truth about death and not be tied to the feeling I'll be seeing my parents or other loved and not-loved ones for eternity. There are many people I avoid in life and I surely don't want to see them in an afterlife!

Let me go in peace and give me a comfortable place in the memories of those who continue living after me and leave it at that.

I am enjoying my life until the end, whether it comes peacefully of natural causes (Pain medication? Yes please!) or quickly from a tragic accident. I really hope not a sudden death, as that's more difficult for my survivors to handle, but whatever will be will be. A quiet passing is my hope.

Loved the movie Harold and Maude, been a fan since I first saw it in the theater in 1973.
For me just take me to the vet and put me to sleep on the day I choose.

In the early 1990’s I worked for a scientific research centre that specializes in the research and treatment of leukaemia. Daily for more than a year I worked closely with a young Indian woman who sadly died at the age of 23 years. She had AML and her weight had dropped to 32KG. There were days when I could make her laugh and there were days when she just broke down and cried, I could only be there at such times.

I recall one Friday afternoon that I and other members of staff went to visit her at her home. She was lying on a couch in the living room with a needle taped to her forearm and a machine that delivered a dose of pain killer at regular intervals. As she lay on the couch the only thing visible was the whites of her eyes. Her wish was to remain alive until Sunday which was the day of her parents wedding anniversary.

After spending some time with her we all left in a sombre mood. I visited her home that following Sunday. There were people milling about on the street and in the front garden and in the hallway of house. I walked into the living room and froze in my steps; there she was sitting upright on an armchair with a bright yellow sari, looking as radiant as the sun, apparently some people have burst of energy before they die. She looked at me and said. ‘I was just talking about you, would you like a drink? Instantly, I thought to myself, ‘I need a fucking drink' and wondered is this same person I that saw two days ago. She asked me what I would like to drink and I replied whiskey then she told her uncle to get two whiskeys, one for her and one for me. Two days later at around 05.00 she died.

Oh for christ sake, everyone says I didn't live well now they expect me to die well?
I plan to be the biggest pain in the ass at the hospice.

I seldom think of my own mortality except for wanting my death to have no pain. I am also aware that death brings on much unfinished business. As for loved ones who have died, I was never there at their last moments. Here today and gone tomorrow is a true saying.

Some deaths are better than others, but no death is good.

Being with both my mother and my father as they died I understand this. We watched Edinburgh Military Tattoo DVD's with my Dad all through the night he went between one breath and the next he breathed in then out and it was over. My brother and I just looked at each other waiting for him to breath in again but he did not. My mother was in hospital on machines so it was not quite the same. He was in a recliner chair so was more upright and we never saw the bubbling she spoke of just steady, normal breathing then nothing.

When death finally arrives, one could only hope to go out quickly.