“We live two lives in this life and the second starts when we realise we only have one.”
— Confucius

There’s nothing quite like watching someone you love take their last breath. Profound and heartbreaking in equal measure. It’s difficult to stand that close to death without finding yourself confronted by your own mortality. Without existential questions bubbling to the surface.

What is the meaning of this whole wild experience we call life?

What really is death, and where do we go?

What’s the point in it all?

After my father died, I found myself sitting with all these enormous questions and very few places to put them. I became fascinated by death, yet quickly realised that not many people wanted to talk about it.

Why is death such a taboo?

It’s strange that the one thing guaranteed in this lifetime seems to be the very thing our culture is so reluctant to speak of. Do we imagine that if we don’t acknowledge it, perhaps we might somehow escape it?

The only certainty we have is that one day our lives will end and yet so much of our culture seems organised around resisting this natural cycle of life.

We are surrounded by industries promising to fight ageing, reverse ageing, slow ageing. Now we even have a growing culture of biohacking and optimisation, attempting to extend life for as long as possible and I sometimes wonder: when did growing older stop being a privilege?

What have we lost in cultures where elders are looked to for their experience, their stories and the wisdom that comes from a life lived?

Since my father died, I’ve found that keeping an awareness of death close actually helps me live more fully. We so often tell ourselves:

I’ll do it when…

One day I’ll…

Eventually I’ll move there, visit there, begin that thing.

We live as though tomorrow is guaranteed. As though somewhere ahead of us exists this vast quantity of time called later and I wonder whether keeping death hidden beneath the rug allows us to forget how quickly life is passing. The hardest real truth is that we could reach the end of our time here and feel:

There were so many things I wanted for my life.

I just thought I had more time.

When my dad was diagnosed with cancer, he continued to live his life fully. He refused to allow the diagnosis to take away the life that was still his. When people commented on how optimistic he was or asked whether he was frightened, he once said:

“One day cancer may take me, but it won’t take me while I’m still alive.”

Those words feel etched into my being now. I carry them in my body like scars. There is pain in them but there is something else there too. A reminder.

Since losing him, I’ve realised that keeping death somewhere nearby helps me live with greater presence. To go after the things I want. To be less ignorant of time.

Over time, I’ve realised that I have developed a greater fear… of being dead while I am still alive.

Perhaps those are my scars speaking.

I’ve come to believe that keeping death as a quiet companion in my life might help prevent me from reaching the end of it and realising I was never fully here.

Death brings me back to presence.

And loss has changed the way I experience the most ordinary parts of my life. As anyone who has lost someone they love will know, it’s often not the big moments we miss, but the apparent insignificance of everyday life.

Their laugh.
Their jokes you used to cringe at.
Their nicknames for you.

Loss has made some of those fleeting moments more visible to me. My hugs have become longer. My life more intentional.

My heart was broken and yet I had probably never felt more alive — as death came knocking on my door.

I want to be mindful here that this is not a share to say that grief has to teach us anything. Loss does not need to make us wiser, more grateful or somehow improved. I would never want to place that expectation on something that can carry such enormous pain. But for me, my father’s death changed my relationship with being alive.

I began to fear something other than death itself.

I became more afraid of being dead while I was still alive.

Of postponing my life.

Of waiting for the right time.

Of moving through my days without really inhabiting them.

We can’t escape death. But perhaps we can become a little less afraid to look in its direction. Perhaps we can allow it to occasionally remind us “Not yet. There is still something I want to do here”.

Not because death is something we need to love or because loss should transform us. But because remembering that our time is finite can return us to a very simple question:

How do I want to live while I am here?

Maybe my dad understood that before I did.

There is a particular kind of hurt in knowing that it took losing him for me to understand it too. But I carry his words like proud scars now.

A reminder to savour this life while I still have the privilege of walking upon this earth.