A close friend died recently. She had had incurable cancer but after a round of chemo had gone into remission. She was persuaded by doctors to have a v risky therapy to try to delay the return of the cancer and underwent four weeks of gruelling treatment. It went ok. She was discharged and died within 48 hours, no one knows why.
I felt a lot of guilt because i never had the big talk with her. When she was first diagnosed i did express some of my feelings but i did not want to talk like she was dying. During her treatment i kept it touch but found it hard to find things to talk about. My life seemed so banal and we avoided the elephant in the room. I told myself there wd be plenty of time durng her recuperation to have proper chats and then she died.
I say all this because there is a piece in the guardian today by a man whose father died about how he did not have the big talk and how losing his father was not how he expected it wd be. I am sorry i don,t know how to link to it, but the writer,s first name was luke. I found both the piece and reader comments v moving and helpful.