Looking into the abyss: Don Watson on facing his mortality

Submitted by Paul Daley on Sun, 02/06/2019 - 11:31am

One of Australia’s great writers talks to Paul Daley about death, faith, Australian character and surviving a leukaemia diagnosis

Don Watson decided to go for a few medical tests after attending the funeral of his old friend Michael Gordon, the loved and respected journalist who died far too young early last year.

Mick’s death at 62 had that impact on many of us who knew him well. If someone so vital, so fit, could pass with such sudden tragedy, without apparent medical warning, what for those, older and younger, who’d cared less for themselves? The subsequent spike in pathology across Australia from those in Mick’s vast orbit (who knows how many lives were potentially saved?) was but one of the myriad legacies of Gordon’s golden contribution.

I was most philosophical when I wasn’t having chemotherapy because chemotherapy makes you feel so unbelievably sick

Big brawny vets, rattling with pills a lot of them, working for nothing, some of them with Bjelke-Petersen attitudes

I am interested in religion you see. And that’d be the thing about dying now – I wouldn’t mind reading more about it