Bereavement Counselling in the NHS (Taking the sting out of death)
Posted by Vale Pat is a Bereavement Counsellor working in an NHS Trust hospital. Her job is to help people affected by a death in a hospital, supporting them through their grieving. Pat is the subject of a long article inSaturday’s Guardian. It can be found here. It’s a heartening read. Death in a hospital […]
If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?
Steve Jobs Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is […]
Euphemisms 2: Pushing up daisies
Posted by Vale As an industry, the funeral business is often told it should be careful about the use of euphemisms – (Collins English Dictionary – euphemism the deliberate or polite use of a pleasant or neutral word or expression to avoid the emotional implications of a plain term, as passed over for died.) At […]
Death Cafe
This post is reproduced with permission from Jayd Kent’s One Queer Femme Anatomy blog. It describes the first-ever pop-up death cafe, the brainchild of Jon Underwood, curator of the Death Cafe blog and one of the nicest and, underneath that, brainiest people you could meet. A death cafe is long-held dream of John. How marvellous […]
Keep calm and carry on
Posted by Charles There is a tendency among some visitors to this blog vastly to overrate the significance of death. How salutary it is, therefore, to remind ourselves that our legislators keep mortality both in perspective and in its place. Maternity leave As an employee you have the right to 26 weeks of Ordinary Maternity Leave […]
The bitter spice that sweetens the dish
Posted by Jonathan A celebrant said today: “Even when funerals are designed to be a celebration of life, I nearly always begin by acknowledging people’s grief and sadness.” Jose (see his thought provoking blog post of 19th September), ever enquiring and studiously leaving no stone unturned, wants to know about incorporating grieving and celebration of life […]
A good funeral: part 1
Posted by Sweetpea In the light of our recent discussions about the merits of secular, civil and religious funerals, one interesting thread started to appear. Namely, what should a funeral not fail to include? Can a funeral ever really be meaningful to anyone? Does any funeral do the things that people need it to do? […]
Euphemisms 1: Officials and officiousness
Posted by Vale Euphemisms are all about not facing up to reality. We like to think we use them for good reasons, but they have a darker side too. This poem, written by Harold Pinter in 1997, uses one of the words we often shy from, yet it too is a euphemism. It was written […]
Should the British mourn or celebrate their dead?
Posted by Jose Antonio Estevez Garcia When my best friend died at the age of 38 it was a drama – not only his unexpected loss but also his funeral which, far from helping us to face that moment, only added more pain to those grievous days. The reason is quite simple: when Angel died his […]
What do atheists profess?
Posted by Richard Rawlinson, religious correspondent Vale makes interesting points in the thread beneath my Beyond the Abyss post, which discusses the gap between secularist individuality and religious communal ritual: We (I) believe that community and the communal celebration of key events is important – yet secularism, at least as it finds expression in the […]
