The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, by Bronnie Ware
I had heard about The Top Five Regrets of the Dying long before I read it, as it is often quoted in the media. Based on the title and the quotes, I expected it to be based on a wide scientific or sociological study, so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a memoir.
The subtitle, “A life transformed by the dearly departing”, gives it away.
The book revolves around the author’s personal experience of working as a carer for dying patients (either through illness or old age), which she did as a “day job” while trying to become a full-time artist.
The story is still largely about the people she looked after. Each chapter introduces a new person, their life circumstances and families. We learn how the author came to work with them, where she lived at the time, and how she felt while learning to care for them.
There is also a lot about her life on the road, as she moves frequently from the farm where she grew up in Australia, to pub jobs in the UK and on an island, to different cities back home. Sometimes house-sitting, sofa surfing or even sleeping in her car, always soul-searching while moving from one place to the next.
One of the charms of the book is its warm tone of voice, as well as the beautiful descriptions of the people and places she travels to. Because the people she looked after were often wealthy, the homes described are beautiful, with peaceful gardens and sea views. The descriptions of bustling cities and wide-open outback also captured my imagination
Having bought the book hoping to find personal guidance on how to live, it was refreshing to hear about the author’s own heart-led, passionate life.
It was also a fascinating insight into the lives of very elderly people, something I don’t have much personal experience of, although I do think about it often (both in terms of caring for relatives and my own future).
Life goes on at a slower pace, when all activities are suspended and all that is left is looking after your body (being pain-free, eating what you can, sleeping), trying to feel comfortable physically, and contemplating how your life has been.
Of course, it’s not all peaceful. There are many difficult passages, as patients lose their autonomy, failed by their bodies, and sometimes their minds. Relationships with relatives are not always easy. And there are a lot of regrets.
But each person is remembered in great detail, their story told in a loving and respectful way. They open up to their carer as they sit together, in long afternoons spent lying on the bed or sitting on a balcony taking in a fresh breeze.
This is how we come to learn, for each person, what they regret the most as they get ready to depart from this life.
It breaks into these five wishes:
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings
- I wish I’d stayed in touch with friends
- I wish I’d let myself be happier
These were inspiring but not comfortable to read. I recognised things in the list I know I should be more mindful of but don’t necessarily take steps to correct. I can see how if I live old enough to look back on my life, I could fall into a few of those categories.
Perhaps those people had also known all along what they should be doing, and now they’d simply ran out of time?
I often find it difficult in real life, making a choice between conflicting goals – how to decide between what we think we should do, what we want to do, and what we could do if we only had the courage.
One sentence that resonated for me was this:
“Once we acknowledge that limited time is remaining, although we don’t know if that is years, weeks or hours, we are less driven by ego or by what other people think. Instead, we are more driven by what our lives truly want.”
The last few chapters focus on the end of the author’s work a carer, as she moves on to the next phase of her life towards lighter, more life-affirming activities. Having been through deep personal changes, she eventually becomes an artist full-time and moves back closer to her family – another move that doesn’t prove easy, but is eventually rewarding.
The book ends on a note of encouragement. None of us know when we will go, and we should do everything we can to free ourselves from our limiting beliefs and live the life we want – while we still have time.
It’s good guidance for life.
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing, by Bronnie Ware – See on Amazon
