Dr Kerrie Noonan | Clinical Psychologist in Palliative Care / Social Researcher / Founder & Innovator

What is death? What a big juicy question!

I'm not a religious person so for me death is the end of life. The heart stops and the brain dies and the body decomposes.

I am comforted by the idea that everything that is alive will one day die. It's how long we get to live that is the big mystery to me.

I don't have any fixed beliefs about an afterlife. I do want a natural burial though because I like the idea that my body can be useful as it decomposes.

Worm food is about as spiritual as as I get! :) ha!

Seriously though, I spend a lot of time with people who are dying. They seem to focus more on caring for the people they are leaving behind. They are trying to die as well as they can, rather than contemplate the afterlife. I don't feel the need to be comforted by an afterlife.

That said, I love the quote for Peter Pan:
 

"To die will be an awfully big Adventure". I'm intrigued by and open to the mystery of it all.

—Kerrie Noonan (2017)

Editor's note: Kerrie Noonan is the Director of The Death Literacy Institute—an organisation working to build death literacy and grief literacy. Further info...

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