Shaking Hands With Death
English
By (author): Terry Pratchett
Why we all deserve a life worth living and a death worth dying for
Most men dont fear death. They fear those things the knife, the shipwreck, the illness, the bomb which precede, by microseconds if youre lucky, and many years if youre not, the moment of death.
When Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimers in his fifties he was angry - not with death but with the disease that would take him there, and with the suffering disease can cause when we are not allowed to put an end to it. In this essay, broadcast to millions as the BBC Richard Dimblebly Lecture 2010 and previously only available as part of A Slip of the Keyboard, he argues for our right to choose - our right to a good life, and a good death too.