KL
Hitchhiking across Australia as a teenager, relying on the kindness of passing serial killers.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 June 2024 source ↗
The question
How close have you come to dying?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Others on this question
View all 209 →
Ronnie Wood
English rock musician
I can dodge the bullets – I’m lucky.
Noah Harari
Israeli historian and philosopher
I was almost run over by a bus when I was 13. And in 1991, in the Gulf war, an Iraqi missile hit close to my house.
Warren Zevon
Songwriter and musician
This is a lot harder for you than it is for me. If you had gone to bed as many nights as I did in the old days knowing that you had taken so much stuff that could kill you and not knowing if you would wake up, this is not as shocking as you think.
Eve Ensler
American playwright, performer, feminist, and activist
Nine years ago I discovered I had stage 3/4 uterine cancer and went through nine months of excruciating surgery, illness and chemotherapy. In that time, I touched death and it was the most powerful transformation of my life. I was forced to learn to take care of my body.
More from Kathy Lette
View profile →As a writer who championed women with grit and wit.
When the book of my enemy was discounted.
Bumping into my male boss at a nudist beach.
Falling in love is like going to the doctor and being told that you need to put on weight. You feel elated.
Bedpan emptier in a hospital.
Raising two children. If you can get your kids to adulthood and they’re not voting Tory, doing drugs or collecting Nazi memorabilia, then you deserve a medal.
More on death & what remains
- How would you want people to remember you? 213 answers
- What song would you want played at your funeral? 178 answers
- If you had only one day left, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid? 54 answers
- What do you believe happens when we die? 50 answers
- What would you most want to leave your children? 44 answers
- What kind of death would you consider a good one? 43 answers
Also answered this
Adrian Edmondson, Maggie O'Farrell, Meera Syal, Eve Ensler, Cory Taylor, Jo Nesbø
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All death & what remains questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject