The writer and comedian David Schneider is terrified of death. Prompted by his elderly mother’s passing on Christmas Day 2014 to consider a subject he had hitherto wanted only to avoid, he sat down to discuss the idea of a “good death” with Tablet contributor Kathryn Mannix (10 November), a palliative care consultant whose work has seen her at the death beds of more than 12,000 people.Schneider’s mother, though suffering from Alzheimer’s, had maintained her morale until the point where she was confined to a wheelchair. Her son thought this a defining moment. Subsequently, she “seemed to take control”, refused food and died six weeks later. “Can people do this?” Schneider wondered. Mannix confirmed that the terminally ill, even those wh