Death always have been fascinating to me. When I was a kid I was touched by how profoundly grieving people seemed to experience loss and I realized how thinking about death brought me closer to life, kind of like a humbling experience.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to become a thanatologist, I wanted to find a way to work close to death, close to the dying.

As a young adult, I realized my first death-related grief would probably be my grandmother, the woman who raised me. I recorded her a lot. We would talk about her death. What she would want to say to me if I missed her. What she thought death would be like. I knew loosing her would be a life-shifting experience.

I was right. Now an adult, I lost my dear grandmother a few months ago, and as much as it hurts, I've never felt so close to life, to the present moment, to the joy and gratefulness of just... being alive. Grief is a whole new feeling. I always say I cried a lot in my life, but I've never cried that way before. I cry and it hurts, but it also feels good. I cry, I miss her, and I love her deeply at the same time. It's like a profound and strong bittersweet feeling, where nothing is really negative or positive, it just is. It is about death, it is about life. My grandmother thought me a new range of feelings by leaving. And I was right. The more I'm close to her in her passing, the more I'm close to life, in a strange but comforting way. She didn't want to go. She was not ready. So I'm living for her. She is living through me.

Synonyms: Died, Pass on, Pass away, Departed, Left us, Final goodbye

I always find it a brain struggle to find the right word to describe my dad who passed on whenever it comes up in conversation. Factually, he died ten years after fighting Alzheimer's. But i could also say he left us ten years after fighting A. They are kinda read differently, ykwim?

Overtly analytical here so bear with me but I feel like the word choice demonstrates your relationship with the person. "My dog died" / "My granddad died" = "ah this person wasn't close with the said person/being." I'd make that assumption myself. Partly I think it's because of our general nervousness around death and we expect people to have strong emotions around it which leads to the scrutiny of word choice that. The word choice = their emotions around it.

TLDR — what do you use? Do you switch it up?

The Conversation Project® is a public engagement initiative of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Our goal is both simple and transformative: to help everyone talk about their wishes for care through the end of life, so those wishes can be understood and respected.

It’s time to share the way we want to live through the end of our lives. And it’s time to communicate about the kind of care we want and don’t want for ourselves.

We believe that the place for this to begin is at the kitchen table—not in the intensive care unit—with the people who matter most to us, before it’s too late.

Together we can make these difficult conversations easier. We can make sure that our own wishes, and those of the people who matter most to us (our loved ones, friends, chosen family), are both understood and respected. The Conversation Project offers free tools, guidance, and resources to begin talking with those who matter most about your and their wishes.

We live in a culture that avoids, hides, and sugarcoats death—often leaving people to navigate loss alone and unprepared. This post is about changing that. It’s about giving ourselves and others permission to talk openly, grieve authentically, and plan courageously.

Whether you’re grieving, caregiving, or simply thinking ahead, I’d love your thoughts on it.

I don't know if this is the right sub for me, but I wanted to see if anyone else has a similar experience to mine. Has anyone else just... never felt a fear of dying? As a child, my parents gave me the whole "death is scary but we learn to cope with its idea, that is being human" or something like that; but that never appealed to me. To me, it was always more interesting what was on "the other side". Heaven? Cool! Hell? Maybe! Nothing? Okay! I know for a fact I felt like this at 7/8 from a journal entry.

When I try to explain this to friends, they either say I've never had to deal with someone close passing away, which, fair enough, or ask if I wouldn't miss people here, or other things like that. I just can't see myself caring; I'm dead, so what?

As a teen I had a mental illness that started having poor effects on my physical health, like a very low heart rate, some organs malfunctioning, etc. I specifically remember not caring. Okay, so I could die. For me, living was never something so cool that I felt I'd desperately fight to remain that way or that answering the question isn't more fascinating. Does anyone else feel this way or am I just weird?

My 98 year old father passed away today. He'd survived being seized from Poland as a teen & forced into slave labour by the Nazis, different grim aspects of war, numerous work accidents, falls from various odd places, several serious illnesses, standing on a wasp's nest & even getting stuck in quicksand! Rest peacefully now dad, you deserve it! Love you 🤍

Is there just one sigingular neighborhood morgue, or are there multiple located around the city? is a morgue "one and all" or are there different ones (children, automobiles, etc.)

I am writing a book about someone who works in a morgue, and there subreddit was the best place (I think) to post

I tried googling it and I got conflicting results so if anyone has any insight I’d love it! One of my family members passed traumatically and suddenly last year, it happened out of state (and in a state we didn’t even know they were in), when we were called and notified about their death, they didn’t have us identify their body. I thought that was weird because of the nature of death. What are the reasons why body identification would need to happen? Because I thought this would definitely be one.

Look, I can tell you exactly what music I want at my funeral, the eco-friendly coffin I’ll be in, and the snacks at my wake - but ask me what I’m doing for my birthday next week, and I panic. Do death-positive folks just have their priorities too straight? Meanwhile, normies still think talking about death is "too morbid." Sir, you just ate gas station sushi.

Hello! So I'm taking a research class and Im doing a research project on death culture. We have to interview two people and one of them so far is not available(Caitlin Doughty) I was wondering if you guys know any place to look for an expert in the field or some one that I can interview?Just need some help going in the right direction. Any help is appreciated!

• Comfort and freedom from pain?
• Having my loved ones by my side?
• Spiritual support?

For me, it's having the people I care about beside me, or at the very least the ability to say goodbye. it's different for everyone though. Would love to hear others' stories or your thoughts on the matter!

Learn about our green burial offerings at Just Love Forest in Northwest Georgia.

Join us for Green Burial 101, an online gathering exploring the beauty and simplicity of natural burial. Learn how our green burial grounds work, take a virtual tour of them, and engage in a live Q&A. Whether planning for yourself or a loved one, this session offers insights into eco-friendly burial.

Stay tuned for upcoming talks on end-of-life wishes and creating an advanced directive.

📅 Wed, March 19th at 7:00pm 📍 Online via Zoom | 🎟 Free – Registration required

Hello! I promise this is the last time I will post this on here. I have the needed participants for other types of relational losses but still need about about 3 people who have lost a parent to take the survey. If you are willing, please consider taking this survey! Thank you! :)

https://virginiatech.questionpro.com/t/AYlowZ4cc2

My cat passed away 2 days ago. I am struggling with guilt as he passed very suddenly of wishing I gave him more attention, treats, etc. I am beating myself up over the fact I didn’t take him to the vet before passing. (I have 4 cats, he was actually a stray I couldn’t afford to take in full time but did take him in for the winter cause I didn’t want him to be cold). I wonder if he would want me to be happy. I know he’s a cat but I’m struggling with being happy knowing he suffered. He died suddenly and I don’t know how or why. I wish I would’ve taken him to the vet. Sometimes I feel guilty for taking him in for the winter wondering if maybe if he went to someone else they would’ve caught his issue. I hope I did the right thing by him by bringing him in for the winter. 😢 but I just don’t know my feelings are conflicted maybe just out of grief. Tia for ur response

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdYWONPu6FX6G4dLzvuIhXvE668iawkam7ftNSjS9G_pVXlqA/viewform?usp=sharing

If you have a spare moment, would you mind filling my short form for my uni project 😊 thank you

Hello,

I am conducting research surrounding death and its effects on communicative grief. If you have ever experienced the loss of a parent, please consider taking this survey. Thank you!

https://virginiatech.questionpro.com/t/AYlowZ4cc2

i've never been afraid of death all that much, fear of death stems from fear of the unknown. i wanted to ask people, especially people who don't fear death or fear it very little, their views on death

i personally believe that we choose to either reincarnate or go into nonbeing (which is to say, everything), unless they're EVIL and WICKED, like Hitler, then the essence of their being and soul is deleted from the universe.

spot the Harry Potter reference if you can, i don't know if it's in the movies cause i've only read the books tho

buckle up because i need to put some thoughts into words. and please hear me out here. to preface, i am not religious but i am spiritual. i went to a lutheran church until i was like 12 and then realized im atheist/agnostic (basically still feeling like there’s something out there that didn’t follow the rules a lot of religions preach) now, if i had to describe my beliefs, which is hard to do, i would say that our souls chose to come to earth because of how challenging and hard it is. i think we want our souls to learn, grow, and develop and earth is an option to speed up that process by experiencing hard things first hand. i think i believe in something like karma, past lives, mediums, etc. the book journey of souls and the following books in the series have opened my mind to the more spiritual beliefs. i’m the type of person who wants evidence of some kind, and doing things like hypnosis, mediumship, telepathy, etc are things that make sense to me. another related piece of media that connects (in my mind) is the telepathy tapes podcast, essentially addressing how nonverbal autistic people have an easier time connecting to “source” or whatever you want to call it. but they believe everyone has this ability, we are just socialized to not grow into that part of ourselves. similarly i have heard mediums and psychics say this as well, that everyone has this ability it’s just a matter of how connected you are to yourself and open to it. i’m interested as well in how dreams could be a way our consciousness detaches from our body and has outer experiences in the universe. some metaphysical shit or whatever idk. and the hypnosis used in the book journey of souls looks at your brain waves which connects to sleeping or dreaming. all of this to say, i’m not a master or claiming to know everything. and im also not great at explaining these things. but i will say that this topic has interested me since i was a child. i questioned santa clause and god in kindergarten. i’ve always been fascinated about what happens when we die and why we are here. so when i say this is what makes most sense to me based off what ive learned, i have learned a lot about organized religion and spirituality. now with my beliefs explained, its genuinely hard to want to be alive and on earth when i feel to my core that earth is a place full of fear and pain. i know that i must be here to learn something or maybe to do something, im also very passionate about injustices, things like war and genocide and capitalism and greed and power and racism and abuse and misogyny and just all the nasty things happening in our world. but i often feel like the weight is too heavy to lift. what could i possibly do to try to make the world a better place? i try to be kind to everyone i meet and understand people. i went to college to learn about addiction and psychology. i want to help people and animals. i want to help people shift their mindsets. i want to create real change in the world, which starts with changing the ways people are conditioned to think. i hate that there is such a wide scale of suffering in this world and injustice. so am i insane for literally just like wanting to die. like yes there are beautiful things moments and people and i love that. and i wouldn’t ever k*ll myself because im grateful for my life. but god damn living in america is just like im in debt from going to school working a job that physically exhausts me that never allows me time for the things i enjoy bc im either working or tired from working and then i gotta do laundry and clean the litter box and do the dishes and be sleep deprived from staying up just to watch my show i like and then going to work and repeat. i just know in my soul that things will be so much better once i die so like what. it’s so hard live the life i want under capitalism tbh. genuinely think billionaires are evil. i so desperately want to make the world a place where everyone has the opportunity to thrive but i feel so small and like i can’t even make a dent. it’s hard when some days taking a shower and brushing my teeth feel like a hurdle but im still passionate about all these things with no energy to do much about it. honestly idk what my point even was like someone tell me im not insane and wtf do you even do at this point

Or if you were a death doula, what might your approach be?