In our acupuncture clinic we often work with death and dying. Yesterday I treated one man who’s mother had died last month and a woman who had miscarried at 12 weeks. The themes of death and dying, endings, letting go, grief and sadness and remembrance run through much of our work. Sometimes I want to honour the loss that the person in front of me has experienced and choose acupuncture points that may help the person connect with their ancestry and heritage. I may choose points that help our hearts to grieve and our Lungs to let go. In Chinese Medicine, the Lungs govern grieving and sadness and to us, it is no surprise that following bereavement, those left behind can easily catch colds and develop lung symptoms such as bronchitis and pneumonia. We want our treatment rooms to be a safe place in which those that come into them can feel held and supported.
Today I attended a ‘death cafe’, in York. Although this concept is apparently growing it was the first one I had come across and was part of the “Before I Die’ festival in York. The space was facilitated by a ‘Soul Midwife’ who explained what her role can be for those whom are dying or wanting to plan for their own death. It’s a bit like a doula but for the last part of our lives rather than the first beginnings. The Soul Midwife, Hazel Roundtree, was a wise and considered woman and had developed her role from her background as a bereavement counsellor. She encouraged us to think about ‘living with dying’ and we spoke about practical issues such as making advance directives or living wills, and eco coffins, and more emotional issues such as how families communicate (or don’t!) about death and dying.
Hazel described one client, who is in her 40’s with no signs of ill-health, whom she met with once a year to have a space in which she could use to explore issues around her death and dying. This struck me as making remarkably good sense. We spend more time planning our 2 week holidays than we do our death, yet we all know that it is something that will happen to us. Fear and embarrassment prevent us from engaging in a dialogue about death, either our own or those close to us.
My question is if we want to make our life worth living, should we be asking ourselves what we need to do to prepare for our own ending?