Every year, in May, Dying Matters holds an Awareness Week. Dying Matters is a coalition of organisations across England and Wales, run by Hospice UK, whose aim is to open up conversations about death and dying, and to help people make plans for their end of life.

This year’s topic is Dying to be Heard, and focuses on finding ways to help people express what they might want at the end of their lives. There are numerous organisations supporting death and dying these days, and yet, the subject still remains largely taboo, even in the greatest pandemic of our time, where over 30,000 people in our country alone have died in recent weeks. It saddens me greatly how many people have been affected. While death is never a comfortable or easy thing to talk about, there’s no doubt in my mind that these conversations can help enormously, both in preparation, during someone’s dying moments, and in the aftermath. Facilitating a “good” death helps everyone, and by expressing your vision of what this means to you, you help your loved ones achieve it with you.

You can find out more about Dying Matters by clicking here.

I was due to speak at a conference this week about how Soul Midwives help support at the end of life, but sadly it had to be cancelled in light of current social distancing rules. However, while talking about options I was able to offer a voluntary service as a remote Soul Midwife to them. I’m so pleased to be able to support within this award-winning group, whose wonderfully caring and thoughtful ethos I had already experienced while facilitating TLC workshop days. It’s very humbling to know that just by offering a listening ear to hard-pressed frontline workers, I can make a difference to both the residents in their care, and to the carers themselves.

Some of the ideas we’ll be working with appear on the Soul Midwife page (click here.)