‘We live in grief-phobic societies’: experts on how to get more comfortable with death

We are all going to die, and so is everyone we know. So how can you not be terrified? For most people, death is not a standard conversation topic. Once, at lunch, a friend began talking about her mother’s death several years earlier. Her voice caught occasionally, but she spoke about it plainly – like a simple fact of life. As we talked, I noticed another friend was shifting uncomfortably in his seat; he didn’t say much. Afterwards, I asked him what was wrong. “I really don’t like talking about death,” he said, his hands twitching anxiously. “I don’t even like thinking about it. It freaks me out.” Continue reading...