It was a cold, bleak November day when I confronted death head on and planned my funeral. I found myself contemplating probing questions for the first time – would I like my body to be hygienically cleansed? Any thoughts on pallbearers? Would I like to wear makeup? I felt tinges of unbearable sadness as I made arrangements. My funeral planner pressed a tissue into my hand as I welled up. But mostly, during the three hours spent fine-tuning the details, I felt elated. Here I was, a fortunately healthy woman happily facing my death and designing a personalised funeral that would celebrate my life; a day filled with warmth, raucous laughter and fun (and inebriated guests). It was a touching and uplifting experience.

That said, my mum was aghast when I mentioned how I’d spent my afternoon. But months later, she asked for the document to have it to hand, and it sparked conversations about her own funeral wishes.

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While not a topic regularly discussed over a Sunday roast with the family, more and new conversations on death are starting to emerge.

“We’re more in touch with how we’re feeling than any other generation,” says Louise Winter, funeral director at London-based funeral directors Poetic Endings. “We’ve become much better at dealing with difficult things when they come up.”

Poppy Mardall, founder of Poppy’s Funerals, another progressive funeral directors in a traditionally slow-moving industry, believes younger generations are approaching the subject of death in the same analytical and open way they treat sex and marriage. “Like all taboos, the reality is that people generally do want to talk about it and get it out in the open – they’re just afraid of offending everyone else. The gradual questioning of things like funerals has, quite quickly, flicked a switch and now people want it out in the open.”

Like all taboos, the reality is that people generally do want to talk about it

Part of this sea change can also be attributed to the Death Cafe, a movement which launched in the UK in 2011, encouraging strangers to gather to talk about dying and death while sipping tea and eating cake. Winter, who helped plan my funeral, is also working hard to alter mindsets. Through an initiative named Life. Death. Whatever. she has partnered with end-of-life doula Anna Lyons to curate events that are designed to engage people, in an accessible way, with death and dying.

“By having difficult conversations and becoming more open to exploring our mortality, we can transform our lives,” says Winter. “It’s not just that we become more aware that our lives are finite, but that we can work out how we want to live.”

Suzanne Bearne planned her own funeral with London-based funeral directors Poetic Endings

While many of us view the idea as sad or terrifying, a research paper named Dying Is Unexpectedly Positive, published in the journal Psychological Science, found that terminally ill people and those on death row approached death more positively than we might imagine.

“Humans are incredibly adaptive – both physically and emotionally – and we go about our daily lives whether we’re dying or not,” says psychological scientist Kurt Gray of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the paper’s authors.

Humans are incredibly adaptive, both physically and emotionally

“In our imagination, dying is lonely and meaningless, but the final blog posts of terminally ill patients and the last words of death row inmates are filled with love, social connection, and meaning.”

In the five years since she launched her funeral directors, Mardall has witnessed a significant shift in attitudes towards death. But, she notes, we should be realistic in our expectations.

“We’ll always want to discuss marriage and birth to a greater degree because they are more positive rites of passage. But someone who has been around a meaningful funeral knows how incredibly transformative and emotionally helpful it can be. It can’t and shouldn’t ‘fix’ the grief – but it’s a very good first step along the way.”

Let’s raise a cup of tea to that.

Featured image: Ornella Binni

This article is featured in issue 92 of Positive News magazine. Subscribe now to get the magazine delivered to your door each quarter.

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1. Creativity

New experiences add fresh colours to our ‘mental palette’ and spark the imagination. When caught up in the stresses of modern life, our thinking is more likely to stick to familiar patterns. When we loosen those chains – and travel is the ultimate jailbreak – our minds can soar. Explore something new, on your doorstep or across the world.

2. Confidence

When we jump off a bungee platform, or fly down a zip-wire, we are getting more than a rush. We’re boosting our self-esteem and confidence and changing the way we view ourselves. When we land, we are not the same person who trembled at the top. Challenge yourself to an adventure: from trudging up a snowy hill to sledging down it.

3. Perspective

Stuck in a rut? The answer may be to change perspective. Literally. The old adage that travel broadens the mind is true, but the reverse is also correct – staying still can lead to narrow thinking. Travel helps create cognitive flexibility. Whatever problem you’re mulling over, the answer may be as simple as thinking about it from somewhere new.

Images: Moyan Brenn

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The shattered remains of a planetary body, or asteroid, are currently orbiting a white dwarf star called GD 61 and are about 170 light years away from Earth, according to astronomers at the Universities of Warwick and Cambridge. Both rocks and water have been detected on the asteroid; two ‘ingredients’ considered vital for the origin of life.

Researchers believe the asteroid comprises remnants from a small watery planet that was knocked out of its original orbit and pulled so close to its sun that it was broken up in the process.

Professor Boris Gänsicke, from the department of physics at the University of Warwick, said: “At this stage in its existence, all that remains of this rocky body is simply dust and debris that has been pulled into the orbit of its dying parent star.

“However, this planetary graveyard swirling around the embers of its parent star is a rich source of information about its former life.”

Jay Farihi from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy said: “Our results demonstrate that there was definitely potential for habitable planets in this exoplanetary system.”

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