Why Death? What I’ve Learned From Walking Into the Room

When I tell people that I specialize in end-of-life support and the conversations around death, I often see a telltale shift.
A lean back.
A flicker of fear.
Sometimes discomfort. Sometimes skepticism.

Almost inevitably, they ask:
“Why death?”

Almost inevitably, I smile.
Not at their discomfort, but at the world I might have a small chance of inviting their hearts into.

Death has a certain reputation.
Like the old woman who lives alone deep in the forest in the fairy tales.
She has many names, and none of them are kind.
We’ve been warned about her- taught to fear her- for our safety and survival, they say.

But if you move past the stories, and consider their source and their purpose…
If you walk into the forest anyway, with eyes, ears, and heart open…
If you visit her door and sit with her a moment…

You might discover she is a kind and generous teacher.
Perhaps even a little lonely.

I volunteer for Hospice, and to my own surprise, I absolutely adore it.
This surprised me because even I—working in the field of end-of-life—had my own fears about walking into those rooms. I realized that if I wanted to help others feel supported and less alone at the end of life, then I needed to become intimate with that space myself.

How could I help others trust themselves through hard things if I didn’t trust myself?

Like so many of us in this culture, I carried my own grief- memories, unspoken fears. The door to that room had once been closed to me, too. I had friends who remembered their own loved ones in hospice with words like sad, scary, and hard. Even our language around death reflects this fear: battles, suffering, loss. Rarely do we speak about tenderness, presence, or love.

When I first began volunteering, my familiar insecurities showed up right on cue.

I wondered:
Will I be enough?
Will I say the wrong thing?
With so little time left, will my presence even help?

Over time, I learned something quietly profound:
Simply showing up is enough.
Your presence is enough.
Your listening. Your gentleness. Your willingness to be there- this is the gift.

With my last hospice patient, we’d often sit on the back porch in the afternoon light overlooking his wife’s garden. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we worked on a puzzle. Sometimes we leafed through the newspaper or old photos. There is something beyond words about sitting with a man at 90-something as he looks at a photo of himself at age 2, sorting images for an album of his own life.

Something about being allowed to witness the acceptance of death.
Of completeness.

Of a life feeling finished, rather than taken.

His wife said this was the difference between sadness and tragedy.

I would pause my fast-moving life- motherhood, business, modern urgency- and simply sit with him. Drinking iced tea. Occasionally sharing a sliver of whatever cake or cookies his wife had baked, filling the house with the smell of comfort. I’d joke with him that I got the better end of the deal with this volunteering gig.

Recently, I was confronted again with the question of enoughness. When hospice asked if I had any special skills to offer, I mentioned that I’m Reiki certified. This is something I studied for my own healing and for my family- I’ve never thought of myself as an expert. Then I received a call: a patient request, an ask of me. My chest tightened.

And there they were again- my familiar coworkers of insecurity, gathered around the water cooler in my mind.

Are you enough?

What if you don’t do it right?

What if this is too much?

Who does she think she is?

I met them.
I acknowledged them.
And then I went anyway.

I visited a woman who had lived a long life, now in her final days on this earth, and I was honored to tend to her. To offer what love could move through me. To be present with her in that sacred threshold. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

What I am learning is this:
With death, as with anything we fear, our work is often to turn toward it rather than away. The places we are most afraid to walk into are often the very places where our gifts are waiting for us. Where we discover that we are enough. Where we realize that our presence is a gift.

Death, when approached with tenderness, is not only an ending.
It is a teacher of how to live.

As Francis Weller writes in The Five Gates of Grief, leaning into death makes our lives richer- more awake, more honest, more loving. Frank Ostaseski writes this, too, in The Five Invitations. Many who have dedicated their lives to accompanying the dying seem to shout this from the rooftops. I find myself doing the same.

If these are conversations you’ve been avoiding. or quietly longing to have, there is a seat on my porch for you.

(Also posted on LinkedIn, Why Death? What I’ve Learned From Walking Into the Room | LinkedIn)