Dear Dr. Neimeyer,
I’m a reporter with a major news service, and we’re doing a story about health apps, some of which encourage people to talk with their loved ones about death. Can you help me understand why that is important, and especially how one might actually do this? Can you think of any questions to get the conversation started?
Kelly G.
Dear Kelly,
I like your question, which is a big one! Here are a few quick thoughts to consider.
Why talk about death?
To acknowledge a fact of life. Not talking about death won’t make it go away. It will simply leave us and loved ones less prepared when it comes. We can never master that which we avoid.
To befriend mortality, or at least come to terms with it. Like illness, aging, and the inexorable passing of time, mortality defines the human condition. Now only takes on real meaning when contrasted with then. What do we want our lives to amount to, while we are still living them?
To intimately understand another person. What do we fear? What do we hope for? What do we wish for in the lives of those we love? These questions yield highly personal answers, and take on real significance when we contemplate our own deaths or those of others who matter to us. Wouldn’t it be tragic to die with only I don’t know or I never thought about it as the answers?
To embrace moments of learning, and moments of meaning. Life is filled with teachable moments: Leaving one home for another. The death of a pet. A significant health threat in ourself or another. A divorce. What do such moments have to teach us? What might they teach our children that will leave them better prepared for future losses?
How might we talk about death?
Humbly, acknowledging that death may be the ultimate mystery that we will not solve, at least in this life.
Vulnerably, acknowledging our fear, our uncertainty, our grief in its shadow.
Honestly, saying nothing we do not know to be true.
Hopefully, embracing the spiritual or philosophic outlooks that let us hold our finitude with greater equanimity.
How can we start the conversation?
Spontaneously, when it comes to our minds, and before we rush to change the channel.
Curiously, without presuming there are right answers.
Deliberately, when discussing our preferences for end-of-life care or seeking those of someone we love.
Responsively, when prompted by a moving film, play, book or song.
Lovingly, when we convey what we want for our loved ones beyond the limits of our own lives with them.
What would be some conversation starters?
Share a profound spiritual experience, and how it changed your view about life and death.
What are three objects that have special meaning to you, that you might like to pass on to others before you pass on? What might you tell them about what they mean?
Is there a special poem, song or saying that you would like to have shared at your funeral? Why?
If your death were to be followed by a “celebration of life,” what especially would you want to see people celebrate?
What has your life taught you that is worth passing on? Who in particular would benefit from this lesson?
If there is a gift in grief, what might it be?
What’s on your bucket list? Have you checked off anything already? What might come next?
What do you imagine an afterlife might look like?
Would you want your loved ones to continue to keep you in their lives in some way after you die, or to put you behind them? If the former, how? If the latter, why?
If you were to lose someone you love before they lose you, would you want to continue to hold them close, or let them go? How?
The list is endless, really. And that’s how it should be, when the implications of something are so vast and vital for us!
Dr. Neimeyer
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