Why can death be such a challenging topic to talk about?
Sue Ryder CEO, James Sanderson, discusses why death can be so difficult to talk about and how we can reframe the end of our lives, by being more open about and planning for our death.
In Lord Darzi’s report, which was commissioned to look at the performance and challenges within the NHS, he included important reflections on end-of-life care.
And in the Independent Investigation of the National Health Service, he wrote, “Society needs to restart the conversation about how to die well: with dignity, compassion, and preferences respected.”
This conversation is vital, but too many of us still shy away from it.
In society, some people do everything they can to avoid talking about the subject, even though it is something that unites all living organisms.
As human beings, we have an advanced sense of what this means and, therefore, emotions driven by fear, loss and the negation of our existence can create blocks in our ability to open up.
At a more general level, we spend a lot of our lives facing things we don’t want to. Life is full of stuff that is not full of joy, yet we face these small and less significant fears on a daily basis because we know that in doing so, they enable us to get on with our day, feeling lighter or more in control.
We also spend a huge amount of our lives planning for things, like a house move, a holiday, a new job. We spend hours considering things we might need to purchase – a new toaster, car insurance or the right pair of trainers.
Why don’t we treat our own death the same way? Why not consider it to be just one of those things we need to develop a plan for, which would free us up to get on with the abundance of other things which bring us joy?
And by facing conversations about death and realising that one day we will all die, we can perhaps fully understand who we are and what is really important to us.
It is a deeply personal matter for all of us to consider, and one that needs to be completely absent of judgement. However, the benefits to ourselves, our families and friends, and to society could be significant if we were able to make this shift.
Included in this, would be improvements to how we interact with health and social care services if more of us had a plan for the end.
There are parallels here with improvements in other health-related movements. Consider cancer and mental health. In the 1970s and 1980s, our conversations about cancer were almost akin to talking in whispers – we mumbled that some had ‘the big C’ or just skirted over the topic. And the taboo of discussing mental health openly was a real failure of society that resulted in many people struggling for many years.
It is amazing now that we can talk more openly about forms of cancer and treatment options, and that we have actively embraced the fact that it is ‘ok not to be ok’ where mental health is concerned.
We still have a long way to go on both fronts but the environment we have now is a revolutionary step forward from where we were.
At Sue Ryder, our vision is to ensure that no one should face death or grief alone. It is a simple and compelling vision, but one that is challenging in a society that avoids talking about death.
One day we will all die. But on every other day of our lives, we won’t. Let’s begin to reframe the end of our lives by adding just one more thing to plan for, talk about, and accept.
Then, perhaps, we can truly live.
This May, we’ll be supporting Dying Matters Awareness Week (6th-12th May 2025) - a national campaign led by Hospice UK that encourages open, honest conversations about death, dying and grief.
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