The D Word: What working nights in aged care taught me about dying — and how I plan to go out laughing

Maggie Lawson – an Aged Care worker – explores what life is like – after dark – behind closed doors.

Here’s something they don’t put in the brochure: most people pass in the wee small hours, by themselves, in the quiet.

I spent decades in advertising – professionally lying for a living – and then one day decided to pivot into aged care. My logic was simple and, in hindsight, slightly unhinged: the oldies love a chat, I love a chat, match made in heaven. Pardon the pun.

What nobody told me was this: the residents weren’t scared of death. Not one bit. These people had made their peace. Meanwhile, I was a woman in her 50s having quiet panic attacks in the linen cupboard, Googling: “Can I die from anxiety while caring for the aged?”

So I made a little private deal with each resident as I got to know them. Don’t go on my shift.

I want you to know: not one of them did. Every single one held on past 6:31am. Either the universe was looking out for me, or those residents genuinely liked me enough to stay. I prefer to think it was the latter.

What the quiet hours taught me

During those final nights with residents, something shifts. You stop just hearing the silence. You start to feel it. The people in those last hours didn’t seem frightened. If anything, they seemed like someone waiting at an airport gate – impatient, almost. Ready for the next adventure. Excited to see their dog again, or their husband, or someone they’d been missing for years.

That’s not me being poetic. That’s just how it looked.

And watching it changed how I think about my own ageing. Profoundly.

What I am absolutely not doing

I am not staying home when I’m invited somewhere. If I can physically get there, I’m going.

My friend Gladys is 90 years old, sharp as a tack, and has the energy of a woman who has been napping since 1987 specifically in preparation for this moment. Every time I invite her somewhere, Gladys says: “Ooh, I don’t know if I’ll still be here.”

Gladys. My love. You will absolutely still be here. You will still be here when you ring me to tell me Pauline Hanson is Prime Minister. That’s how long you’re going to live. Come.

Get a will. I am begging you.

A friend of mine passed recently – someone we had begged, for years, to get her wishes down on paper. She didn’t. Sure enough, the man she’d been living with got everything, despite her very clear verbal instructions that half was going to her brother.

Verbal instructions, darling, are not a legal document. Verbal instructions are a wish. Wishes are for birthday candles, not estate planning.

A will is just admin. Do the admin.

Pick your photos. Now. Today.

If you leave this to your family, I promise you they will find the one from Karen’s wedding in 2009. The one where you’ve had four champagnes, one eye is half closed, and you’re holding a bread roll like it personally offended you. That photo will be enlarged. It will be on a stand. It will be the last thing every person who ever respected you sees before they eat a finger sandwich in your honour.

Here is what you do right now, today: find your three best photos, put them in a folder, label it “USE THESE OR I WILL HAUNT YOU,” and tell someone where they are. You have spent decades on this face. The least it deserves is a decent exit photo.

About my funeral

Is it bad that I want people to laugh at mine? No. It is the correct instinct and I will not be taking questions.

I have sat through too many recent funerals where everyone sobbed through “Time to Say Goodbye” and “Amazing Grace,” and honestly it feels like a punishment for the living. We’re the ones still here. Why are we suffering?

Mine will open with “Another One Bites the Dust.” This is locked in. This is in the will. This is non-negotiable.

For my son-in-law, I have already requested “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” from The Wizard of Oz.

My family will hate this. That is entirely the point.

One last thing

I bought a burial plot in my mid-twenties, right after my mother passed. I wanted to be beside her one day. It is, for the record, the cheapest block of land you will ever purchase in this country — and unlike your superannuation, you are absolutely guaranteed to use it. I have since wondered, idly, whether I owe capital gains tax on it. I haven’t lived in it, after all.

Pick your music. Write the will. Find the photos. These are not morbid tasks — they are acts of love for the people you leave behind.

And if the residents I cared for in those quiet hours taught me anything, it’s this: it’s coming for all of us. Just make sure it has to chase you.