Subtitles section Play video
(Music) Philip: In six weeks time I will be dead. I will be cremated. I will face huge
fear. But it is an extraordinary experience. This is the most exciting and the most extraordinary
journey of my life. My only regret is it ends. I'd like to be on this journey with you almost
forever and a day. Adrian: I was asked to shoot an intimate portrait of a man that I
didn't know. I knew that he was ill but I really wasn't sure what to expect. Philip:
It's only when they say, you know, "Philip Gould, you're going to die, get used to it
- in weeks or months". It's only when that happens that you're aware of death. And only
when that happens that also life screams at you in its intensity.
I saw my children born. I saw them born, and I saw the incredible, massive potential of
that moment. And when my father died and the air left his body, it was as powerful as the
air entering the bodies of my daughters.
And I knew the purpose here now was to give as much love as I could to people who mattered
to me, even though I was dying. And my life became death. It gained a kind of quality
and power that it never had before. It entered a new zone which was the death zone. Just
a second, it's my wife. Hi darling.
Yeah, are you okay with all this, darling? It's lovely. I feel good. It's going to be
beautiful there and I'm going to love it.
Adrian: After an intense, intimate discussion, Philip and I decided to shoot his portrait
at Highgate Cemetery on his own grave.
Philip: Only when you accept death can you free yourself from it, can you deal with it,
can you move forward from it. So acceptance is the absolute key. At that moment, you gain
freedom and you gain power and you gain courage. This is it. This is going to be, you know,
my home for an eternity. I do really feel in my mind I've reframed it. I've changed
it. It's not some gloomy, ghastly thing. I just think this is such a wonderful, wonderful
idea, this community of the living and the dead. And I have no fear at all that I go
to this. I'm happy about it. I feel a sense almost of optimism about it, almost looking
forward to it as the next stage, and certainly very, very comfortable. You sort of think
"God, I'm scared, I'm a coward." I thought I was a coward. I was the kind of guy who
was kind of too frightened to go too fast on a bike in the evening time. You think "I
can't do this. I can't do chemotherapy. It's too painful. It's too horrible." But you do
it. And then they say "By the way, mate, you're not going to have a stomach. And you'll never
eat normally, ever again." And you kind of get used to it. And then you sort of think
"Actually, every single thing they throw at you, you can do it."
I had my wife and my children there for me at this moment because I am defining myself
now, through death. I'm giving meaning to myself, through death. Without that, I do
not know what I would do. I rely upon them enormously, almost completely. I try and lead
then. I try and inspire them. I try and show strength.
Adrian: Philip asked me to help convey his message. To help him share with other people
what he was going through.
Philip: I had a couple of really tough nights. My breathing was bad. My coughing was bad.
Everything was bad. And Gail was in a bad state too. And then I just lay there and thought
"Okay, this is bad but this is death. And as long as I look death in the eye, and as
long as I accept that I can choose the death that I seek and the death that I choose, I
have some freedom here. I have some power here. I have some possibility to shape for
myself my own death." And at that moment, I have a kind of freedom.
I feel very calm. I feel rare rest. I have found the experience of the last few weeks
to be as good as it's possible to have an experience to be since I have entered this
so-called death zone.
I've had more moments of happiness in the last five months than perhaps the last few
years. More moments of a kind of private ecstasy than really for many years. I just feel at
one with the world.
The thing I'd like to say to my daughters is I love them. And the thing I'd lie to say
to my wife is I'm sorry I let you down, but my God, you are fantastic. And I'm not letting
you down now. And you will have the best life afterwards, I believe. I love them all. That's
what I want to say to them.