Conversations About Death: How to Begin & Keep Talking
When it comes to dying and death — how many conversations are:
Enough?
Too few?
Too many?
And over what span of time?
You and I live in a culture that approaches mortality with a ten foot pole setting us up for missing the mark (okay, lots of belly flops!) with language suggesting it’s “a” conversation, you know the talk — a checklist, a folder, a signature here or there or asking questions that are just too big to wrap our heads and hearts around from the start.
But real life, real relationships, and real dying isn’t tidy and while lists have their place sometimes we need to be more creative in our approach, maybe even a bit random. You and I change over time — I believe our conversations needs to keep pace with how we grow and evolve as people.
What I’ve learned — slowly, imperfectly — is that it takes hundreds of conversations when it comes to dying and death.
There is no “one and done” but rather tiny talks — tidbits. Tender ones. Practical ones. Awkward ones. Casual ones over coffee. Some lasting a minute. Some an hour. Some revisited years later.
The best ones — they’re happening today, long before I see the exit sign. They might start out rocky, but some tender (or dark) humor finds its way into the conversation as well. I’m creating muscle memory for when the rubber meets the road. I feel like I’ve just started!
Below are some observations I’ve made these past two years after my initial attempts having these conversations felt like a series of dead-ends. Do these ring true for you too? Let me know.
Starting with the wo(man) in the mirror.
The origin story of the Pre-Dead Social Club starts with a daughter (me) trying to talk to her dad (Chuck) about dying. My mom had recently died with such clarity of what was important to her and it made me realize I didn’t know the same for my dad.
I wanted — no, needed — to know how he would want my sister and I to handle different situations to support him.
But, no matter how I asked the question of, “what’s important to you,” my dad always seemed to end with, “Let’s just deal with it when it happens.”
It wasn’t until I asked myself the same question, and worked through my own feelings and preferences, that I finally arrived at the secret to getting my dad to open up.
I shared with him what I would want. And all of a sudden, we were making progress.
Now three years into these chats with my dad, he and I are finally finding our groove — but not without speed bumps along the way. Heck, if it were easy EVERYONE would be talking about it, right?! (A girl can dream!) I’m grateful I started when I did, and for the opportunity to be reminded of an age old lesson — lead by example.
Being able to share my own feelings, ponderings, and eventually my preferences on these tender topics made it okay for my dad, and later a smattering of others in my circle, to crack open the door to their own process of exploration and self-discovery.
Here are a few reflections on the benefits of the "let’s start with me” approach:
Tenderness. It’s part of the deal.
The long goodbye (define long, right?) will still be tender and complicated — I’m not having all these conversations in advance to dull or skip that part. I have no illusions around that.
Currently, my motivation to continue to have these conversations and make progress on practical matters for myself looks like this (I imagine these might shift over time):
While I’m busy dying, I don’t want to be distracted and stressed by what I’ve left undone or unresolved. I want to focus on quality time — period.
I’m using the proverbial runway I have today, which is providing me time to contemplate bigger decisions and to explore how I really feel, which I know will help me later.
I’ll have shared what is important to me with family and friends and get a chance to hear their reactions (not under pressure). We’ll have time to talk about what I imagine will bring me comfort and hopefully I’ll have learned the same from them.
The Pre-Dead Social Club is all about creating opportunities for all of us to start a die-a-logue with the mortal in the mirror, so that each of us can then make connections with the people that mean the most to us about the thing we all have in common.
I’m so glad we’re all in this together. ‘Till death—let’s keep talking.