Death was much closer. Plus, your older relatives lived in your home and you saw them dying. And you laid them out in the front room.

Death is always unfair because we think we'll beat it in some way and that's probably not healthy. I spent many years working as a palliative-care nurse in the States, and the families that coped the best afterward were the ones that were able to talk.

It's really a taboo subject. So it's gutsy for them to put (the billboards) out there.

An advantage of poverty, your relatives gain nothing by your death

I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped.

Oh God, Alaska, I love you. I love you," and the Colonel whispered, "I'm so sorry, Pudge. I know you did," and I said, "No. Not past tense." She wasn't even a person anymore, just flesh rotting, but I loved her present tense.