Weston Hospicecare is inviting the local community to join the conversation about death, dying, and grief in ways that resonate with them during this year’s Dying Matters Awareness Week (5–11 May 2025).
The national campaign, led by Hospice UK, encourages open and honest discussions about end of life experiences. This year’s theme, The Culture of Dying Matters, delves into the diverse ways communities across the UK discuss, navigate, and commemorate death and dying, while emphasising the shared emotions that connect us all in grief and loss.
Throughout the week, Weston Hospicecare will be sharing conversations had with local residents about death and dying and what their beliefs are.
Geoff
How do your own experiences of loss help you to think and talk about death?
“It’s not always easy to talk about death, especially if it’s someone who was very close to you. My wife died 7 years ago, and it’s still difficult to talk about now. In my family, some people try to avoid it, people don’t say I’m going up to cemetery, they say things instead like ‘I’m just going up to Clevedon’ to hedge around the subject.”
How is death talked about in your family, community, culture, or faith?
“I think it falls with generations, when I was small nobody ever talked about it at all. We’d notice how somebody had disappeared and were just told they had gone away, or they are no longer around, nobody sat down and said, ‘they’ve died’. We never to any funerals, it was a very Victorian attitude. It was strange, but as we’ve got older, I’ve seen more and more words being used to get people talking about death. Here at the Men in Sheds, we’ve all lost someone close, not necessarily wives, but people close to us.”
Janis
How do your own experiences of loss help you to think and talk about death?
“I recall my grandmother who was rather stoic, she had a strong faith. My grandfather had died during the war, and we never went to the cemetery or the grave, which was odd because people her age did. I remember her telling me ‘I don’t need a stone for my memories’. But on this day, she wanted my father to take me there, and when asked why she said, ‘because you need to make sure no-one else is buried in the plot!’. Which I thought was a very realistic thing to do to make sure no-one else’s name was on the stone!”
“When people close to me have died, I have shed a tear, but I haven’t really had too much to worry about and I think that death is inevitable, but it’s the getting there that is the tough part, this is the part that always upsets me, it the journey there that’s the toughest part of death. Its not the dying, it’s the getting there. It’s like getting on a mystery train, without knowing where it’s going, how long it’s going to take, or when you are going to have to get off.”
How is death talked about in your family, community, culture, or faith?
“It’s not talked about very much. It was mainly with my grandmother. But faith wise, and I’ve shocked myself with this, I went to a convent school, so faith was always there in the background. Since my diagnosis I haven’t fell back on faith at all, I haven’t found it necessary to pray or anything. I’ve been to places of worship, but they didn’t really mean much, which surprised me.”
James
How do your own experiences of loss help you to think and talk about death?
“I didn’t have a conventional upbringing; I was brought up by two women. My mother had epilepsy, and I was adopted by my grandmother, my birthmother returned into my life later. I never knew my birthmother existed until I was around 10, and I asked my grandmother about it, and why we had different last names. My grandmother gave a call, and I was introduced to my birthmother, it was sad, but it was a good day.”
“They were both hard workers and I had a good childhood, I never wanted for anything. Just 2 years after my birthmother was back in my life, and we had reconnected, she died from a large seizure whilst I was away at a Scout camp. It was quick, and she wouldn’t have suffered. No-one for 10 years would tell me about how it had happened. This really knocked my faith, the way in which a higher power works in mysterious ways, and my mother was gone at 32 years of age. But thank you for still allowing me to have my other parent, my grandmother, but then 2 years later she was gone as well.”
“That was it for me, faith had gone, both young. I suppressed everything. At the time it made me go down some very dark and destructive paths. I couldn’t talk about death. Now, it’s the opposite, I can talk about it, I can process it and reflect on it, I’ve had a lot of help. If me talking about my experiences, what I’ve lived, the mistakes I’ve made, can just help 1,2 or more people from not having to go down that path, then it is blessed.”
How is death talked about in your family, community, culture, or faith?
“It’s not talked about in my family, the surviving members just say, ‘oh that was a long time ago, just shake it off’, not helpful at all. They deal with it by suppressing it and just saying ‘get over it’. In terms of the people I see, friendships, or associates and acquaintances, I don’t really talk about it, as I’ve been through a lot and I shield them for it, because not everyone is comfortable talking about death, it can be a very sensitive area. I’m still working on my faith. I’d love to have a chat with whoever’s up there about their mysterious ways when my time comes.”
Bob
How do your own experiences of loss help you to think and talk about death?
“From 2000 my wife and I had lost her mother, my mother, and our daughter in the space of 2 years. Then in 2019, I lost my wife to cancer after 45 years of marriage, I was lost. Literally lost. I can honestly say the Hospice, through the Men in Sheds, has saved my life, it has helped me to talk about death, albeit mainly my wife’s, and because here we’ve all been through the system, in one way or another, we can almost know what people are feeling and maybe be some consolation or some therapy for each other. We laugh more than it is sad, but if it needs to be sad then it can be, and we come together with sympathy and support. It is getting easier to talk about death, but it doesn’t mean to say we don’t all have our moments, we talk about it and we can be adults, of course were all getting on the old side ourselves, and we know we will all pop off ourselves, but we can talk about it.”
How is death talked about in your family, community, culture, or faith?
“In the family, not a great deal, because of the losses we’ve had, how can I say, we don’t meet up that often. But with the Men in Sheds, I consider those boys a part of my family, it’s a brotherhood. We drink coffee, chat, take the mickey out of each other, talking about death with them is entirely different than talking with our family, its therapy. It’s eased that sort of conversation for me, we know what each other’s feeling to an extent. The bereavement is there, sometimes at different levels, but we know its grief.”
Louise
How do your own experiences of loss help you to think and talk about death?
“I guess the way that my own experiences of loss help me to talk about death is that it helps be to realise that we all process someone dying in different ways and just trying to leave space for that. When my mother died, a friend of mine posted everything on socials, after the wake, and I felt so offended, it was meant for us, it was not meant to be a public thing. She was a public figure, and her father died just last week, and she had already posted online, posted videos, set up a Go Fund me, and had not contacted any of us, any of her friends, it was just straight online. But what I’ve come to realise is that that is her way of processing, her world is digital, and it is online, that’s where she receives her support. I didn’t like it when it happened when my mother passed, and we didn’t talk for 4 or 5 years after that because I felt she was using my grief for online clicks. But I think for her there’s something very real in it, where she can just be herself.”
How is death talked about in your family, community, culture, or faith?
“It’s funny isn’t it, in my family, my own nuclear family where I have my child and my partner, we talk about death quite openly and quite a lot. I think initially my son was quite nervous about it because it was spoken about so clearly and openly, but he’s now reached the age where he is seeing the payoff for being open. He’s not afraid of it, not looking forward to it, but the idea of death and the inevitably of it isn’t scary. I think that is one of the gifts I wanted to give my family is that it isn’t a taboo subject, it isn’t morbid, its just one of the very few definite things in life. In my culture, with the tribe that I come from it is the worst thing that can happen is some dies. From what I saw when my mother died, everyone just stopped talking about it, and when people pray, its almost like death is a punishment and I really reject that from my upbringing.”
Ahmad
How do your own experiences of loss help you to think and talk about death?
Growing up in a country like Afghanistan, where conflict and loss have touched nearly every family, death was never an abstract concept. I have lost family members, close relatives and friends to war, illness, and displacement. These experiences taught me that while death is a moment of sorrow, it is also a reminder of the preciousness of life. I believe that death is not the end, but a transition. This belief gives me comfort and allows me to talk about loss with a sense of acceptance and hope rather than fear.
How is death talked about in your family, community, culture, or faith?
In Afghan culture, death is seen as a natural and inevitable part of life – not something to fear, but something to understand and prepare for. Our traditions are deeply shaped by spiritual values, and conversations about death are approached with humility and respect. Within families and communities, there is a shared understanding that life is a journey with a purpose, and that death marks a return to where we came from. While it may not be openly discussed in everyday conversation, preparing for death – through acts of kindness, reflection, and fulfilling one’s responsibilities – is considered a meaningful part of life. These practices are passed down through generations, connecting cultural identity with a deep-rooted sense of
faith and moral duty.
Helen
How do your own experiences of loss help you to think and talk about death?
“I think here at Weston Hospicecare because we are so open about talking about death it’s the main thing we deal with here, it makes it easier to talk about. We can draw upon experiences and other conversations with previous patients, families and contacts to help the next people we meet. It can make it easier. At home it is difficult to talk about, it’s not a taboo subject, but its something that is difficult to talk about. Recently my Dad was very ill and it was tough to talk about with him, even though I knew it was a conversation we needed to have.”
How is death talked about in your family, community, culture, or faith?
“With family its not something that is openly talked about, there’s been times with Grandparents were its something that should have been talked about and I get annoyed at myself thinking I should have stamped my feet more that we needed to openly acknowledge that someone is dying. I did manage to do this two days before my Grandfather died, but I think that was only because of my experience with dying here. It’s in contrast to my Mum, who is also a Nurse, but works with children, she doesn’t have that experience of dying in the same way I do. It was her Dad as well, whereas for me I had that generational gap which made it easier talking to the staff. Here at the Weston Hospicecare, it’s easier, we all work in the same job, we all experience the same things. I think as a society, as a country, its still a very taboo subject, it shouldn’t be. It’s something we all need to talk about more openly so that peoples wishes are fulfilled.”