Charlotte Wood

I don't know.

And I know that, obviously, physical pain and immobility and stuff is awful.

But I think, you know, my parents died when they were young.

I always thought that I would obviously die young.

So I always thought, well, I'll be dead by 60, so I won't have to even think about getting old.

And now I thought, well, maybe I won't be.

I mean, I hope I'm not dead by 60.

But one of the reasons I wrote the book, I think, was to think, oh my God, maybe I won't die now.

Maybe I'll live to be old, and what could that possibly be like?

So I find the, and also I don't find it disgusting or, you know, I guess partly watching two parents die of cancer and becoming very physically vulnerable.

From that time I was always kind of, I still find it curious when people talk about wanting to have dignity as they die.

As if... And I absolutely think anyone should do what they want about their own death.

I'm completely in favour of having charge of you when you want to die yourself.

But I'm worried by the cultural idea that dependence or physical vulnerability is somehow undignified.

I find that offensive, really, to think my mother was as dignified as her body was just...

She was kind of shedding her body.

I'm going to get emotional.

There was nothing undignified about it.

All I saw was a kind of transcendent power in her.

So I guess I find the idea that physical decay is somehow terrifying or disgusting or horrifying.