Honouring the Life of Clair Fisher (by Lucy Selman)

On 26 January 2022 Clair Fisher died. Clair was an amazing advocate for talking openly about death and dying, planning for the end of life, and for hospice and palliative care. Diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 2018, she was initially told she had less than a 50% chance of surviving a year. After retiring from work, she started the project Dying Well, in collaboration with the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, as a space to document her personal journey and explore the evidence around wellbeing in terminal illness on Twitter and her [dyingwell.uk]website.

I first met Clair when we spoke at an event for Dying Matters Week organised by Cornwall Hospice. Clair shared her perspective on completing an Advance Care Plan, and I was blown away by her authenticity and the power of her words. We invited her to join us at Good Grief Festival October 2021, and I was honoured to facilitate a panel discussion with her and two other guests entitled Serious illness: Grieving for a life interrupted. In honour of all Clair achieved, we are making this session free to access on the Grief Channel for the next month – please see below.

You can read her beautiful goodbye message to her followers here.

This blog was written by Dr Lucy Selman, founding director of Good Grief Festival.