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Ethereal Embrace End-of-life Care, North Mackay (2026)

31/08/2026

Sometimes loss gives something back ❤️

I’ve been thinking lately about the strange things that can sometimes grow around loss.

Not because I believe everything happens for a reason.
I don’t.
Sometimes terrible things happen and they are simply terrible. There isn’t always a lesson hiding underneath them, or some beautiful meaning waiting to be discovered if we look hard enough.

But sometimes, in the middle of something painful, something else moves. 🖤

A door opens that you thought had been closed forever.
Someone steps forward from a place you never expected.
And suddenly the landscape looks slightly different.

Estrangement has been part of my life in several different ways, and one of the things I’ve always found particularly difficult about it is around death.

💀What happens if that person dies?
💀Would I even know?
💀Would somebody know to tell me?
💀Would I go to the funeral?
💀Would I be welcome?
💀Or would I find out afterwards?

Because when you’re estranged from someone, you don’t necessarily stop loving them.
You just lose your place in their life.

And there is a peculiar kind of grief in knowing that someone you love is still somewhere in the world, living an entire life that no longer includes you.

We tend to think of grief as something that begins when somebody dies.💔

But we grieve living people too.
We grieve relationships.
Families.
Friendships.
We grieve the people we once knew intimately and now know almost nothing about.
We grieve the future we assumed we would share with them.

And estrangement creates its own strange kind of grief because there is rarely a funeral for it.
🖤Nobody brings flowers.
🖤Nobody sends a card.
🖤Nobody necessarily even knows you are grieving.

Recently, my family has been going through something incredibly difficult.
And in the middle of it, my phone rang.
It was my brother.
A brother I had been estranged from for decades.
“Hey, it’s me. We heard about the issues. Is there anything I can do to help?”

That was it.
One sentence.
No grand reconciliation.
No forensic examination of the past.
No dramatic conversation about all the years that had disappeared between us.

Just:
Is there anything I can do to help?

And I think we sometimes underestimate the power of something that simple.
Because human nature seems to want reconciliation to be dramatic.

We imagine the phone call.
The knock at the door.
The embrace.
The tears.
The apologies.
The warm and fuzzy moment when everybody finally understands everybody else and somebody says, "Look at all the time we’ve wasted"

But real life isn't always like that.
Sometimes the warm and fuzzy thing simply doesn't happen.
Sometimes someone just reaches out.

And sometimes something else happens too.
An opportunity you once thought you desperately wanted finally appears, and you discover that you aren't ready for it.

Not never.
Just not now.
That surprised me too.

Because perhaps reconciliation isn't simply about whether a door opens.
It also depends on whether the people standing on either side of it are ready to walk through.
And maybe we need to allow each other that. 🙏

A tentative step forward doesn't have to become a reunion.
A conversation doesn't have to resolve decades of hurt.
And an unexpected not now doesn't necessarily mean never.
Sometimes all we can manage is one small movement.
One small acknowledgement that somewhere underneath the history, the hurt, the distance and all those years, something is still there.

My brother's phone call didn't give us back the lost years.
It didn't rewrite anything.
It didn't magically resolve the reasons we became estranged in the first place.

But it changed something.
Because after decades of silence, when something happened that mattered enough, he picked up the phone.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”

There was still a thread.
Perhaps that's one of the unexpected things loss can sometimes give us.

Not a lesson.
Not a reason for suffering.
Certainly not some insistence that something terrible had to happen so that something good could come from it.
Just the occasional glimpse of something we thought had disappeared completely.

A thread.
A tiny opening.
A reminder that human relationships are rarely as neat or as final as we would like them to be.

Sometimes a door opens and we walk through.

Sometimes it opens and we realise we're not ready.

And sometimes nobody opens the door at all.

They simply reach across the years and say:
“Hey. It's me. Is there anything I can do to help?” ❤️

17/08/2026

**THE ASHES MYTH: WHEN “RETURNING TO NATURE” DOESN’T ACTUALLY HELP NATURE**

“I want my ashes planted under a tree.”

“Scatter me in the garden.”

“Tip me into the river.”

“Put me somewhere beautiful so I can go back to nature.”

They sound like some of the most natural, environmentally gentle things we could possibly do with our bodies after death.

Except there is something most of us are never told.

**Cremated remains are not fertiliser.**

In fact, putting a concentrated quantity of cremated remains directly around the roots of a tree can do exactly the opposite of what we intended.

It can damage it.

Here’s why.

What we casually call “ashes” aren't really ash in the way most of us imagine it.

During cremation, most of the body's soft tissue is consumed. What remains are **bone fragments**. Those fragments are then mechanically processed and pulverised into the granular material returned to the family.

The Cremation Association of North America describes cremated remains as predominantly **calcium phosphates and other minerals**.

In other words, Grandma isn't a little bag of lovely organic compost.

Sorry, Grandma.

And that distinction matters.

Cremated remains can be **highly alkaline and high in salts, including sodium**. In a concentrated area, that can alter the chemistry of the soil dramatically.

Plants don't simply “eat” nutrients because those nutrients happen to be present.

Roots need the right chemical environment to absorb water and nutrients.

Excess salt can make it harder for roots to take up water.

A very high pH can affect which nutrients are available to the plant.

So imagine digging a lovely hole, tipping an entire person's cremated remains into it and placing the delicate root ball of a young tree straight on top.

Symbolically?

Beautiful.

Horticulturally?

**Possibly disastrous.**

And this isn't merely theoretical.

A peer-reviewed study published in *Environmental Science and Pollution Research* in 2022 examined vegetation in a cremated-remains scattering garden.

The researchers found that **approximately half of the vegetation had degraded to either unhealthy vegetation or bare soil.**

Think about that for a moment.

A place specifically intended for people to “return to nature” was showing measurable degradation of the nature receiving them.

That doesn't mean we can't plant memorial trees.

Far from it.

It means that **“dig hole → pour in Mum → add tree” is not a sound planting method.**

If you want someone's cremated remains incorporated into a memorial planting, they may need to be appropriately dispersed, diluted or treated/amended so that the surrounding soil remains capable of supporting plant life.

And then there is water.

This one needs a little nuance, because social media loves turning complicated things into scary one-liners.

**Scattering one person's ashes into the ocean is not the same thing as dumping them into a small pond.**

Concentration matters.

Dilution matters.

The ecosystem matters.

There is little reason to portray a single scattering into a large flowing or tidal body of water as an ecological catastrophe. Some environmental authorities specifically note that there is no evidence of harm from cremated remains dispersed into flowing rivers, streams or tidal waters.

But still or enclosed bodies of water are another matter. Some authorities prohibit scattering into ponds and lakes specifically because of concern about impacts on the local environment.

And here in Australia, NSW Health advises people to obtain appropriate permission before scattering ashes on beaches, rivers, parks or other public areas, noting that scattering can potentially fall within air or water pollution provisions.

So this isn't a post saying:

**DON'T SCATTER ASHES.**

And it isn't saying:

**DON'T PLANT MEMORIAL TREES.**

Please do those things if they are meaningful to you.

This is about **death literacy**.

It is about understanding what we are actually handling.

Because somewhere along the way we created a rather romantic idea that cremated remains are a harmless organic substance that simply disappears back into the earth.

They aren't.

And perhaps funeral planning should include this conversation.

If your wish is:

*“I want my body to nourish a tree.”*

Wonderful.

But make sure the method you choose is actually capable of doing that.

If your wish is:

*“Scatter me somewhere wild and beautiful.”*

Wonderful.

But think about the place, the concentration, the ecology and the permissions involved.

Because loving the natural world in death means learning enough about it **not to accidentally damage the very place we chose because we loved it.**

The ritual doesn't become any less beautiful because we understand the science.

If anything, I think it becomes more meaningful.

**Talking about death won't kill you.
But knowing what happens afterwards might help us tread a little more gently on the earth.**

10/08/2026

🕯️ AM I DOING IT RIGHT?

Years ago, when I worked in the nursing home, our social worker, Kate, was sitting with a man who was dying.

At some point he called out
“Kate? Kate are you there?”
“Yeah mate, I'm here.”

“Kate. Kate… is it happening?”
She knew exactly what he meant.
And she answered him.
“Yes. You're dying.”

A little while later:
“Kate?”
“Yes?”
“Am I doing it right?”

I've never forgotten that. 💔

What an extraordinarily human question.
We spend our entire lives wondering whether we're doing things properly.

Am I being a good parent?
Am I doing my job properly?
Am I coping the way I'm supposed to?
Am I grieving properly?
Am I living properly?

And then, eventually, every single one of us arrives at the one thing we will all have to do, and none of us gets to practise.
Dying.

And apparently, even then, we can wonder:
Am I doing this right?

💛 I think we have created an idea of the “good death” that can sometimes become another expectation placed upon the dying person.

We talk about acceptance.
Being ready.
Making peace.
Saying goodbye.
Having the important conversations.
Perhaps offering some profound final words before quietly slipping away surrounded by the people we love.

And yes, sometimes dying looks like that.
But sometimes it doesn't. 💀

Sometimes people are frightened.
Sometimes they're angry.
Sometimes they don't want to die.
Sometimes they're restless or confused.
Sometimes they hallucinate.
Sometimes they call for their mother who has been dead for fifty years.
Sometimes they swear.
Sometimes they fight.
Sometimes they talk until almost the very end.
Sometimes they become unconscious and never say another word.
Sometimes there is reconciliation.
Sometimes there isn't.
Sometimes there are beautiful final words.
And sometimes the last thing somebody says makes absolutely no bloody sense at all.

None of that means they're doing it wrong.
There is no performance required of the dying person.
They don't owe those of us around the bed serenity.
They don't have to make their death beautiful for us.
They don't have to reassure us that they're ready to go.
They don't even have to be ready.

🕯️ But there's another part of that conversation with Kate that I think matters enormously.

He asked:
“Is it happening?”
And she told him the truth.
“Yes. You're dying.”

She didn't say, Don't worry about that.
She didn't say, You're just very tired.
She didn't change the subject because the truth was uncomfortable.
He asked a direct question about the most significant thing that was happening to his body, and she respected him enough to answer it.

I was reminded recently of something a member of this group told me.
Her mother had died, and afterwards she realised something that astounded her:
Nobody had actually told her mother that she was dying!
She said something that has stayed with me:
If we'd known Mum was actively dying, everything would have been completely different.

And isn't that enormous?
Because knowing that someone is dying changes the meaning of time.

💫Maybe you don't go home that night.
💫Maybe you make the phone call.
💫Maybe you stop worrying about whether they're eating enough.
💫Maybe you say the thing you've been meaning to say.
💫Maybe you simply sit down, hold their hand and understand:
This is goodbye.

Of course, conversations about dying are individual.
People have different wishes, different levels of understanding and capacity, different cultures and beliefs.
There is no single script that belongs at every bedside.
But I do wonder whether sometimes, in our desire to protect somebody from the knowledge that they are dying, we are actually protecting ourselves from having to say it.

Kate didn't do that.
She told him the truth.
And because she told him the truth, he was able to ask the question that perhaps he really needed answered:
“Am I doing it right?” 🖤

I don't know exactly what Kate said next.
But I know what I would say now.
Yes, mate. You are. ❤️

However frightened you are.
However angry.
However peaceful.
However confused.
However ready—or completely fu***ng unready—you are.
There is no test to pass here.
There is no perfect way to leave a life.
You are dying in the only way any of us ever can:
your way.

And perhaps that's something worth remembering when we're privileged enough to sit beside somebody who is approaching the end.

A person can't ask,
“Am I doing it right?”
if everybody around the bed is pretending they're not doing it at all. 🕯️❤️

09/08/2026

🕯️ What does it mean to be a good witness when somebody lets us see their dying?

As many of you know, I've been sharing little Ezra's journey with this group for some time.

Yesterday, Ezra died. 💔
I knew it was coming.
We all knew it was coming.
And yet when I read the words, it still felt like a shock.

There is something very strange about anticipatory grief.
Someone can tell us that they are dying.
We can watch their illness progress.
We can know that they may have weeks or months left.
We absorb the idea: this person is going to die.

And then life keeps going.
They are still here today.
And tomorrow.
And next week.

Somewhere along the way, "they are dying" almost becomes a state of being.
Until suddenly it isn't.
There comes an actual moment when the person who was dying dies. 🖤

And no matter how long you've known it was coming, there's still that visceral moment of:
It actually happened.
Ezra is gone.

🌿 The body on its way towards death

I've been fascinated—and sometimes deeply disturbed—by what the human body can endure on its way towards death for a very long time.

Years ago, I worked in a nursing home.
There was an elderly woman there called Peggy. She had been a farmer, and I remember being told that she had once been the first woman in her community to wear trousers. I loved that little detail about her.

Peggy took weeks to die.
I can't remember exactly how many now.
I just remember being astonished that her body kept going.
One day, a registered nurse walked into her room and said affectionately:
"Come on, Peggy. You're really taking your time over here, darling."
She was reprimanded for saying it.
I understand why.
But all these years later, I also understand the bewilderment underneath it.

Dying takes the time it takes.☠️

Years later, I experienced something very different when Tim was dying.

I knew he was extremely ill. I had to wear PPE to visit him.
I thought I was prepared for what I would see.
I wasn't. 💔

His liver and other organs were failing.
He was bright yellow.
His body was massively swollen.
And he was wearing a nappy. 😔

F**k me.
For some reason, that was the part that broke me.

Not because there is anything remotely shameful about needing continence care.
There isn't.
It was because this was Tim.

A grown man I had known in an entirely different body and an entirely different life.

It was one of my first truly visceral encounters with just how profoundly illness can change a human body while the person is still here.
I've never forgotten it.

And then there was Ezra.
Only twelve months separate some of the photographs his mother has shared.

In one, he is a sturdy, rosy-cheeked little boy with beautiful curls and a huge smile.

Towards the end, his tiny body was profoundly wasted.

His mother wrote that he had gone eleven weeks without feeds.
Eleven weeks.
And still his little body continued.

I find that almost impossible to comprehend.
Not inspirational.
Not beautiful.
Extraordinary.

Perhaps this is partly why dying can be so confronting when we haven't seen much of it.
We look at the dying body through the eyes of a healthy body.
We see someone no longer eating and think:
FEED HIM.

We see someone barely drinking and think:
GIVE HIM A DRINK.

People actually wrote those things to Ezra's mother. Sometimes in capital letters.

But the dying body is not simply a healthy body being denied food and water.
It is a body that knows exactly what it's doing.

As the body shuts down, its needs and its ability to process food and fluids change.
Swallowing can become difficult or unsafe.
Digestion changes.
Organs are failing.
Comfort becomes the priority.
And that brings me to the other thing Ezra and his family have made me think deeply about.

🌱 What do we expect caring for a dying person to look like?

Ezra received hospice care at home.
His family cared for him day after day, night after night.

There was equipment.
Medication.
Nappy changes.
Washing.
Repositioning.
Bedding and laundry.
Mouth care.
Other children who still needed their mother.
A puppy who still needed looking after.
A household in which ordinary life somehow had to continue while a little boy was dying in the middle of it.

And sometimes, while she sat beside Ezra, his mother propagated pothos plants.
People criticised her for it.
They criticised her for cleaning his room.
They questioned her for moving things around.
They told her to leave him alone.
They questioned decisions about his care.

Imagine caring for your dying child around the clock and then finding yourself having to explain to strangers on the internet why you were propagating a pothos plant. 💔

I have never cared for somebody dying in my home.
I imagine I wouldn't be able to drag myself away from the bedside.

But here's the important part:
I imagine.
I don't know.

Would I still be sitting there every second after three days?
Three weeks?
Eleven weeks?
Would I desperately need to go outside?
Clean something?
Fold washing?
Rearrange a cupboard?
Propagate a bloody pothos because I needed something ordinary to do with my hands?
I have absolutely no idea.

And perhaps when we haven't lived something, one of the most respectful things we can sometimes say is:
I don't know.

❤️ The privilege of being allowed to witness

Ezra's mother chose to make an extraordinarily private experience public.
She let people see the good, the bad and the ugly of her child's dying.

The equipment.
The physical changes.
The exhausting care.
The siblings climbing into bed beside him.
The puppy lying with him.
The ordinary moments.
The terrible moments.
Even profoundly intimate family grief.

Ezra's sister recently turned twelve.
One of her birthday presents was a memory bear containing the sound of Ezra laughing.
His mother shared the moment she opened it.
The family howled and sobbed together.
Think about the generosity—and vulnerability—in allowing strangers to witness something like that.

Of course, the overwhelming majority of people responded to this family with extraordinary love. ❣️

But there were also questions.
Judgements.
Corrections.

Even after Ezra died, someone questioned whether the date his mother had given for his death was correct because of the time-zone difference!
And actually, I don't necessarily think that person meant any harm.
Perhaps they had loved following Ezra too.
Perhaps they simply wanted to understand exactly what had happened.

But it crystallised something for me.
When does our understandable desire to know become another burden for the grieving person to carry?

Sometimes we have a question—and perhaps our job is simply to tolerate not having the answer. ☠️

Sometimes we are frightened by what we're seeing—and perhaps our job is to tolerate our own fear rather than demanding that the family make it less frightening for us. ☠️

Sometimes we don't understand a medical decision—and perhaps we have to remember that we are witnessing a tiny fragment of a situation being managed by a family and their healthcare team.

Ashley knew that opening this extraordinarily intimate part of her family's life to the world would make her vulnerable.
And she did it anyway.

In some sense, perhaps she did choose to carry those of us who were watching—to let us accompany her family, to let us learn, and to let thousands of strangers come to care about her beautiful little boy. 🙏

But there is a distinction I think is worth remembering:
She chose to carry witnesses.
She didn't owe those witnesses explanations.

Being invited to witness somebody else's dying is a privilege.
It isn't ownership.

And perhaps being a good witness sometimes means resisting the urge to fix, question, advise or understand everything.

Sometimes it means simply saying:
I am here.
I see what you are going through.
Thank you for trusting me enough to let me see it.
And then bearing witness.

🕊️ Ezra died at home, surrounded by the ordinary things and people of his life.
His siblings could climb into bed beside him.
His puppy could lie beside him.
His mother could care for his body.
There was space for touch and flowers and tears and goodbye.

This is death too.
It isn't always hushed voices, clasped hands and perfectly chosen final words.

Sometimes it's nappies and medical equipment.
Sometimes it's washing sheets.
Sometimes it's a puppy on the bed.
Sometimes it's a sibling curled around his little brother.
And sometimes it's a mother sitting beside her dying child, propagating pothos.

Life doesn't stop while somebody is dying.
It gathers itself around them.

Fly free, beautiful Ezra. 🕊️💛
And thank you to the family who allowed so many of us to know and love a little piece of you.

08/08/2026

🖤 Dying to Know Day 2026 🖤

Today is Dying to Know Day — a day that encourages all of us to get a little more comfortable talking about something that happens to every single one of us.

This year’s theme is “Nobody Knows.”

Because here's the thing...

💫Nobody knows you want everyone laughing at your funeral unless you tell them.
💫Nobody knows which song you want played.
💫Nobody knows whether you want to be buried, cremated or something completely different.
💫Nobody knows what should happen to your beloved pets. 🐾
💫Nobody knows which family traditions you desperately want to continue after you're gone.
💫Nobody knows what matters to you unless you tell somebody.

And these conversations don't have to be gloomy or frightening. They can happen over a cup of tea, sitting in the car, around the dinner table or at a Sunday BBQ.
You don't need to have everything figured out.

You just need to start talking. ❤️

So perhaps today, tell somebody one thing you'd like them to know.
And if you're comfortable, tell us too.

💬 What's one thing you want the people you love to know about your wishes for the end of your life — or after you're gone?

Because talking about death won't kill you.
But it might make things a whole lot easier for the people you leave behind. 🕊️

06/08/2026

Nobody can tell you when to mourn ❤️

24/07/2026

🕊️ There are some conversations around death that people whisper... if they speak about them at all.

One of them is what many people call "relief."

The interesting thing is that there are so many words people reach for.
Release. Peace. Rest. Exhale.

None of them ever seem quite right.

So many people eventually settle on the word "relief," not because it truly captures what they're feeling, but because they can't find another word that does. 🖤

Unfortunately, that word often becomes another source of guilt.

It can sound as though they're saying they're relieved the person died, when that isn't what they mean at all.

More often, they're trying to describe something much harder to put into language.

💥The end of relentless uncertainty.
💥The end of living on high alert.
💥The end of waiting for the next phone call, the next crisis, the next emergency.
💥The end of sleeping with one eye open

Perhaps what finally settles isn't the heart.
Perhaps it's the nervous system.

💙 Grief and relief are not opposites.
One doesn't cancel out the other.

You can desperately wish someone were still here while also recognising that the constant vigilance, fear and anticipation have finally come to an end. 💔

Maybe part of becoming more death literate is giving ourselves permission to acknowledge these complicated emotions without judging them.

Sometimes the hardest part isn't what we feel.
It's finding words that are kind enough to hold what we feel. ❤️

12/07/2026

🖤 A Different Way of Thinking About Grief ❤️

Today I came across a perspective that genuinely made me stop and think.

The speaker wasn't saying that rituals, memorials or noting anniversaries are wrong.
Far from it.
Rituals can be deeply meaningful and comforting. ❤️

His point was that they often focus our attention on the absence of the person we've lost.

He suggested that if we want to gradually create new neural pathways and gently reshape the way we experience grief, we might also ask ourselves a different question:

Where does all that love go now?

Instead of continually pouring our love into the empty space left by their absence, perhaps we can begin pouring some of that love back into ourselves, without guilt.

Not because we've stopped loving them.
Not because we've forgotten them.
But because the love itself hasn't disappeared.
❤️ The relationship has changed, but the love is still here.

Perhaps that "empty space" isn't really empty at all.
Perhaps it's simply asking us to receive some of the love we so freely gave to someone else. 🙏

It certainly changed the way I thought about grief today.

💬 Has something you've read or heard ever completely shifted your perspective on grief?

I'd love to hear about it.

12/07/2026

🖤 Memento Mori: Gladiators ⚔️

When we think of Roman gladiators, we often imagine endless battles to the death. ☠️

The reality was a little different.
One gladiatorial training school in southern Italy recorded the details of 29 dead gladiators.

⚔️ Ten were trainees who died before they ever entered the arena, mainly from training accidents.

⚔️ Nineteen died during or after fighting.

Other inscriptions tell us a little more about the men themselves:

• One died aged 23 after 8 fights. • One died aged 27 after 11 fights. • One died aged 34 after 21 fights. • Another died aged 30 after 34 fights (winning 21, drawing 9 and losing just 4).

Despite the danger, not every contest ended in death. 💀

A skilled and popular gladiator who surrendered after putting on a good fight was often spared to fight another day.

Some are recorded as having fought between 60 and 155 battles!!

💬 Hollywood often portrays gladiators as fighting to the death every time.
The historical record paints a much more nuanced picture.

Were you surprised by any of these statistics?

01/07/2026

🎭 Acting the Part

The ancient Romans often described life as a stage.

They believed that throughout a single lifetime we put on—and take off—many different masks.

Seneca observed that while most of us change masks throughout our lives...

"Only the wise man played no part other than his own, the one he was designed for or adapted to."

I couldn't help smiling at that. Two thousand years ago the Romans were talking about masking... and we're still discovering what that can mean. 😊

He also wrote:

"Like a story, the important thing about life is how it is played out. It doesn't matter where you stop. Stop wherever you want to, but just attach a good ending."

That, to me, is the essence of memento mori.

The point wasn't to become preoccupied with death.

The point was that life itself was the performance.
And death was always going to be part of the story. ☠️

There are no rehearsals for the moment of death.

We all get one shot at it.

And whether that final shot is successful depends, in large part, on how we've lived every scene that came before it.

Seneca believed we should be our own audience, making sure we live—and die—up to the part we have chosen. 🖤

When the Emperor Augustus lay dying, he turned to those gathered around him and asked them to applaud him for the part he had played in the comedy of life.👏

What an extraordinary way to leave the stage!

Perhaps the question isn't,
"How long is my story?"

Perhaps it's
"Am I playing my own part well?"

Ethereal Embrace End-of-life Care

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