Peta Morris | Creative Care Worker / Multidisciplinary Artist

I had a fear of death that began in my early childhood. Our Sunday School teacher asked if we were christened, I wasn’t, apparently this was a big deal! I was now destined for hell, off to the devil’s fiery man cave with all those pesky heathens when I died. I went home that day with a fear of dying in my sleep, a fear of death, and a lot of unanswered questions.

The first dead body I saw, was my Uncle Mick, he laid in an open coffin, I was 8. I remember the powdery blue of his skin and the soft white shiny polyester fabric that surrounded him, like the fluffy clouds in heaven. I wondered where he had gone to and hoped to God that he’d been christened.

The second, I was 19. It was the body of a man who had just murdered seven people (three of them, family friends). After his killing spree, he shot himself in the head on the rooftop carpark opposite our apartment. By then I’d realised hell was on earth.

The third, I was 31. Our father Tony, he died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack, our anchor was gone. The day before his death, I spoke about him till the early hours of the morning. I don’t recall the conversation, I was drunk. I stayed drunk for a year or more after that because the grief was too unbearable, how do you process something that nobody wants to talk about, and everyone wants you to get over.

A policeman met my sister and I at the hospital, the kindness in his eyes reminded me of dad. He took us to the viewing room. Dads body laid on a cold steel bench covered to the neck with a crisp heavy white cotton sheet. I stroked his head, he didn’t look asleep, he looked and felt empty, the light was gone.

He would visit me in dreams and helped me in ways that affirmed this life isn’t just about the physical. Dad wasn’t christened but he would have hated heaven, ‘too many god botherers’.

The fourth, I was 49. My mum.

Truth is, everything leading up to my mother’s death felt like it was conjured, we were carried by forces far greater than both of us. An arc that stretched beyond generational lines, as if every moment of our life together led us to this.

We had been estranged for a short time prior to her diagnosis of advanced bulbous motor neurone disease. Over the next three months at our home, with the support of a death doula and palliative nurses, we provided our mum a space surrounded by family, a menagerie of animals, unconditional love, thickened red wine, custard, and the cryptic crossword. I learnt more about this life when walking beside my mother to her death, it was a gift for both of us.

Two days before mum died, our cat bought in an injured bird and placed it at the end of my bed, it died the following morning, I knew it was close for mum too. The morning of her death I went for a swim, I got a call from the respite nurse, it was time. I carried mum to her bed; I lay beside her and sang till her spirit was lifted on a gust of wind with a chorus of magpie’s. I witnessed the weight and burdens of this life lift, and a peacefulness gently wash over her. Her spirit visiting for two years on the wings of the black prince.

—Peta Morris (2024)

Editor’s note: After the death of her mother, Peta Morris founded Creative Death Care, an initiative which provides creative pathways to support the dying and bereaved families. Services include the facilitation of coffin painting, artist designed urns, and workshops for children. Peta is also a painter, drawer, sculptor, writer, and a singer songwriter. 

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