This is Life Lessons From Death, the newsletter from Poppy's founder, Poppy Mardall. This content first appeared on LinkedIn.
Hello and welcome to Life Lessons from Death, a newsletter for people and organisations curious to know what death can teach us about living and working well.
In our professional and personal lives, change is a constant and endings are a part of life. We can fight this – and lots of us try to - or we can learn to ride it. If we can ride it, we will find that every ending holds the seeds of something new, the chance to learn and grow.
As Founder of London funeral directors Poppy's, I’ve had more than a decade of insights from death, and it has transformed me. Now I want to invite you behind the scenes so you can learn too.
This week, I'm reflecting on our growing preoccupation with longevity. I'm exploring the end of life doula movement and I'm telling you two stories of ceremony that succeeded in honouring the past whilst working in the present.
I post updates fortnightly so please do subscribe and share widely.
Longevity vs living for today: can we aim for both?
Okay, first thing's first. It definitely makes sense to take good care of yourself: both so you can try to live longer and perhaps more importantly, so the quality of those years can be the best they can be.
This is something I 100% practice myself. I swim outside all year round, I do some weights, I eat more veggies than I used to and I’m mostly in bed by 10.30pm.
I also totally get the ballooning conversation about longevity. We're finding out more and more about how to enhance our health. It's natural and good to apply that to our lives.
But the problem (or advantage?) of working with death is noticing what the labels on your supplement pills won't tell you. Having supported families to bury triathletes who died in their 40s and committed smokers who lasted to 101, I see more than my fair share of people who's experiences mess with the rules: that if we eat well, exercise and take the right pills, we will live a long, healthy life.
So these are the health warnings I think the longevity project should come with:
💀 Kidding yourself you can outwit death. We could spend all our time and money working towards a long life. And it might not work. I have seen people feel so cheated by their diagnosis: 'but I did all the right things'. Living well and improving our chances isn’t the same as inoculating ourselves against death. That’s not possible.
😏 Patronising people who are dying. If when well we perpetuate the myth that death can be evaded through good health, we at best piss off and at worst really hurt the people who are actually dying, as well as the people who love them. A million experiences of being told pomegranate seeds/beetroot/positive thinking will stop a terminal illness come into my mind. It's not helpful.
🍦 Missing this moment. We risk missing the actual moment we live in right now. This is a tricky one. I'm not saying don't run or swim or go to bed early (which I know can be joyous experiences in themselves). But be careful of playing a game where we repeatedly sacrifice today in order to have tomorrow. Sometimes, eating ice cream or staying up late is the best choice.
I'm wondering what you think about this. Is the way we're talking about longevity helping? I'm wondering where some of my wise contacts stand on this - what am I missing?
A gathering of end of life doulas
Do you know what a doula is? Perhaps better understood as a role to assist childbirth, there is a growing movement of end of life doulas who work to support and advocate for people at the end of their lives. I was lucky enough to be amongst them last week as they met for their annual gathering, exploring what great support and care for dying and grieving people can look like.
There are a number of ways an end of life doula can transform your experience at the end of your life:
📝 Planning ahead. End of life doulas help with advance care planning, decision-making and conversations about personal values, wishes and what a ‘good death’ looks like.
🗣️ Having difficult or avoided conversations. I have often heard dying people say they want to talk about what's coming, but friends and family can't do it. A doula creates a calm, safe space to explore feelings, hopes and fears, helping everyone involved feel heard and supported.
❤️ Getting support beyond medical care. An end of life doula offers emotional and practical guidance.
There are many more ways doulas can support you and your family and friends. If you want to know more, check them out here. And thanks Dr Emma Clare for including me.
Did you know about end of life doulas? Now you do, would you consider seeking one out for support?
A case for ceremony: tradition vs modernity
Although funerals are normally my bag, this week I have been happily drawn into the other two big life events: a civil partnership and a naming ceremony.
On Saturday I helped my friends with their civil partnership, where they spoke vows and exchanged rings. We sang songs, siblings read poems and friends made speeches. We drank wine and ate cake. So far so traditional.
But the ceremony was in the garden, we sat in a semi-circle on hay bales and kids gathered on blankets on the floor. It wasn’t a traditional wedding and this mattered to the couple for lots of reasons. They are not religious. They struggle with some of the patriarchal symbolism held in tradition. They wanted to be united in front of friends and family: to do so in a way that honoured the past and made sense to all generations gathered in the garden. But they wanted to do it their way.
At my baby cousin's naming ceremony this Thursday, godparents will make promises, the babe will wear an old and treasured family gown, we will remember our ancestors and we will sing hymns together. But the ceremony will happen on the beach where we grew up. A family member will lead the ceremony and the water we sprinkle on him will come straight from the sea.
I'm celebrating both of these ceremonies for their evolution of tradition. My work at Poppy's is often misunderstood as a battle between tradition and modernity, assuming as we do that a ceremony needs to be either a Catholic Mass or a pagan ritual. Not true. The best ceremonies are the ones that make sense to the people gathered, whatever that means to them.
As you can probably tell, I’m a strong believer in the power of ceremony and of ritual. Of course everyone should and can do what’s right for them, and if that means rejecting ceremony whole-sale, that is their right. But I think sometimes ceremony is being accidentally rejected when what one wants to let go of is old traditions that aren’t working any more. Which is a shame because you can, in fact, pick and choose what’s right for you.
Have you been to a ceremony that felt really authentic and meaningful, whether anchored by faith or religion or something personal to the people involved? What made it so? I'd love to hear your reflections.
Okay friends, until next time.
About the Author
I founded Poppy's in 2012 to make outstanding care the norm when someone dies. Running a young company through the 2010s, I experienced pretty much constant organisational chop and change. Along the way I had three kids, now aged 10, 8 and 6. In 2021 I went through a leadership succession, recruited a CEO and changed my role to Founder & Chair. Change, endings and fresh starts are my buddies and friends.
Poppy's is a funeral directors, based in London, with a fresh approach to funerals. Instead of following rigid traditions, we listen to what you want and need. Instead of hiding behind closed doors, we’re open about how we care for the living and the dead. At Poppy's, we’re by your side every step of the way.