Why Death?

People often ask me why I’m so fascinated by death. They word it differently, but that’s the basic question, so I thought it might be something worth explaining here.

I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been drawn to elements of death: graveyards have always intrigued me, and I’ve always had an interest in funerals, as well as the bigger questions of what happens to us once we are gone. I also can’t remember a time when death hasn’t been part of my life.

My Uncle Kevin died suddenly, aged seventeen, when I was two, and while I don’t remember this, I am also convinced that it had a big impact on me as a child, and started my need to know more about it. When I was three, my grandma came to stay with us, and I knew she was dying. Some of my earliest memories are being terrified to go into her bedroom for fear of finding her dead, so I clearly understood some of what was happening but not much.

My grandad died when I was twelve, after developing a brain tumour, so there were months of hospital visits, operations, hospice, then finally, being taken to see him after he died, followed by the funeral. I’m very glad I was included in all of this, but it also definitely fuelled my need to know more.

Then, when I was twenty one, my daughter, Alice, died, and my obsession grew. I needed to understand everything I could about grief, death, and dying, but also lost some of my fear of it, since, whatever happens when you die, on some level, I’ll be with her again.

Since then, various  and friends have died, and it sometimes feels like periods where nobody was dying or grieving were few and far between—something I assumed was normal life until started talking more about it and realised there are lots of people who manage to get well into adulthood without a bereavement.

I was with my Grandma as she died in 2011, and again with my dad in 2016, and those experiences made me realise what an absolute privilege it is to be present at someone’s last moment. I was devastated by both deaths, but also so honoured to have been there, and able to see the beauty in it all alongside the pain, fear, and the many other emotions death brings up. I also realised that I had an intuitive understanding of the process, which, again, I had assumed everyone shared, but these experiences made me see that many people don’t, so having someone who does to guide them can make a huge difference.

When I did my Death Coach training, I was relieved to find out that many of the things I had felt and actions I had taken through sheer instinct are actually considered best practice, and that my readings of the situations had been correct, which gave me so much confidence in doing this work.

Death is life’s biggest mystery, and there’s always so much more to learn and for the dying to teach us, and I’m so glad to be on this path where I get to be part of that learning, and to pass on what I learn to benefit others.