My very first memory of death was standing alongside my grandfather (Pup) as we knelt by the casket of his Mom, my great grandmother Catherine.  He talked me through what happens when you die and he talked about her body and her soul.  I was 11   years old at the time.  I remember her hands... so taken by her hands and the lack of life in them.   Pup spent much of my childhood with a diagnosis of prostate cancer. My Mom, a nurse by training, taught my sister, brother and I to treasure our time with him in case it was our last.  By the age of 16, my best friend was diagnosed with leukemia.  In the spring of my final year of high school my Dad was diagnosed with a malignant glioblastoma (brain tumour) and for the first two years of university he underwent surgery and all medical treatments offered until there were no more.  He died the summer between my second and third year of my undergraduate degree. 

My parents were always incredibly open (maybe too much so…) and I always understood what decisions were being made and why.  I had access to my Dad’s medical team and I asked a lot of questions.  My Dad’s neurosurgeon wrote a letter of recommendation for me a few years later when I applied to graduate school. In the 3 years that followed my father’s death, Pup died of bone cancer, my great aunt Mae with lymphoma, my grandmother Grace with lung cancer. 

I know that when people and their loved ones are supported in having tough conversations, in putting plans into place, putting practical matters on paper, there is room to focus on what matters most; the present moment.  When the person and their family are expertly cared for, there is less anxiety and fear and the process of the transition is a place of the love we feel.  We each bear the responsibility to work out our own dying AND our culture does not make room for these conversations easily nor do most people have much experience with the dying process.