We need to talk more about death.
Why it’s time to invite death to the dinner table.
Death. It’s a taboo topic. Not many people like or want to talk about it. It’s one of those things that’s common to us all but like conversations around poop its banned from the dinner table.
What is it that stops conversations on this topic?
Even when a loved one is facing their death, we skirt around the subject stopping short of mentioning the word. We chat about inane daily things like the weather, or about new purchases, but almost never about death.
What is it about someone’s impending death or their passing that makes us so afraid to talk about it?
Does it make us question our own mortality? Making us face up to the reality that we are only here on this earth for a finite time.
Does the subject of death and our finiteness force us to self-reflect — a forced belly button gaze that we would all prefer to put off?
I am not afraid of dying. Nor does death itself scare me. I know some people cannot cope with seeing a dead body. I am unsure why or what goes through people’s minds at the thought of this — especially one that has been prepared by the funeral directors. They look like they’re asleep. But this is only one part of it.
When it comes to death, what I don’t like is being the one left behind. Being left with the gaping hole a loved one leaves in your heart. Wanting to have conversations, pointing out things they’d love or laugh at. Wanting their warmth of simply being nearby.
That’s what I miss most about my mum. She died earlier this year. She knew she was very sick two years before she passed but didn’t tell anyone. Not because she was afraid. But because she didn’t want to be a bother. She was a stubborn old bird — fiercely independent till the end. So, she had time to prepare. For someone normally so disorganised she left us with specific instructions on what to do on her passing and even paid for her funeral.
It was my mum who taught me to not fear death. Without realising it, she made me understand death is a normal part of life. She had conversations at the dinner table with us about it. It was part of her life from working night shift in an old people’s home as a nurse aide. She encountered death on a regular basis with old dears (as she liked to call them) often having my mum’s face as the last one they see.
Naturally curious, us kids would ask what did they look like when they died, did they smell, did it hurt?
Without judgement, without fear, my mum would answer our questions simply and clearly. She normalised death for us so when grandparents died, we did not fear this, we accepted their death, we said our goodbyes and mourned them. It did not make us afraid of our own deaths or even fear the eventual demise of our mum.
This is how it was for our whole family. When my grandad died, my father took me into see his body to say goodbye. It was my dad’s belief that we give the dead a kiss on the forehead to wish them well on their next journey. I’m not going to lie; I was scared initially. But it was simply fear of the unknown. Dad helped me to not fear but to give comfort in someone’s parting, to feel they were not leaving for ever but simply on a different stage of their journey.
But my upbringing is not the norm. I count myself lucky to have had death sat at our table as a welcome guest over tea.
Perhaps it is time more of us did the same. If more of us invited death to tea, we could ask it the difficult questions, confront the unknown, our fears.
Giving death a seat at the table will help us realise it is not death we fear but the unknown.
Break the bread with death and we learn to embrace the life we have.
