I live with my wife and our dog Molly in the middle of the North Pennines, on the border of County Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria. Having studied psychology at university, I then spent much of my working life writing computer software, as well as working with my wife as a foster carer for children from a wide range of cultural backgrounds and family circumstances before commencing the training to become an End of Life Doula.
As I get older myself, and contemplate my own mortality while thinking of the friends and loved ones I have lost, I feel that it is important for us to learn to talk more openly about death. Grief and pain may be inevitable when we lose a loved one, or when we ourselves approach death, but by speaking about death with honesty and with love, and by planning ahead, we can do a lot which to help a person have a “good death” and to build happy memories for those left behind.