Death careers

Back to regular newslettering soon

Hello!

Thank you for joining me, I’m so glad you’re here.

This newsletter will be a little different. I lost my grandma this week, and have spent the last couple of weeks being by her side either in hospital or at home when they released her to pass.

Half of me is thinking that you, dear reader, won’t mind waiting a bit for me to feel a bit more emotionally put together to write, but at the same time maybe writing will make me feel a bit better.

When Grandma had her stroke a couple of weeks ago, kicking off The End, some days she was awake (and couldn’t remember who I was, which broke my heart more than I thought it would, considering I knew it was a possibility). Other days it was a case of me yapping on for hours to her while she drifted in and out of consciousness.

The staff on the ward were fascinating. There was the team who washed her, the team who gave her medicine, those who fed her the weird Huel style bottles of food. Then there was a team who went around testing patients’ mental and physical strength; they would run through phrases for them to complete, like “it’s raining cats and…”, and get them to complete wooden puzzles to test their coordination.

We had live-in carers for Grandma for the past few years of her life. It’s a tough, tough job - a carer is “invading” someone’s home, trying to care for them but with the understanding that they won’t always be doing things the way the patient would be doing them if they were able. Grandma was an utter pain in the bum to some of her carers. We had lots of conversations about how she has to be patient and kind to newbies; they will learn with time. Some didn’t last very long at all.

After a while there was a good rhythm with a couple of carers who would tag team with each other every few weeks. It is such a full-on job, and I think carers of all kinds are underpaid and underappreciated for what they do in society. That’s not even going into unpaid carers and that whole ecosystem.

In the last couple of weeks I (as the only family member local and available) was with Grandma 2-3 hours a day, but it wasn’t lost on me that it would probably be the carer who Grandma passed with in the end. Sure enough, she called me at 11pm to say Grandma had passed.

A few years ago when I was working in schools, I remember there was one year 12 girl who wanted to work in funeral care. I spent ages trying to find information for her, or even an apprenticeship (there are level 2 and 3 apprenticeship standards but roles seem to come up very rarely, at least in our area). I was reminded of this when I met the team who came to take Grandma’s body away - an older chap and a young woman.

It’s an incredible amount of information that’s given to people who have just lost someone, and I have to admit that even though I have a notebook where I write stuff down, I have missed key information at times. The duo who came to the house were slow and kind with me, explaining things a couple of times before I got it. I think it really takes special people to do this work - customer service to an extreme level.

Not only did they have to deal with me, upset and dealing with seeing my beloved Grandma being wrapped up and wheeled away, but there is also a fair bit of paperwork and explaining to do as well. They were great, and I can see why that young girl wanted to work in this industry. I’m not sure I could do this work; I would be crying with the customers each time.

The admin around death is quite heavy. I’ve been doing this alone for the past few days, until I can pass it to my dad at the end of next week. I wrote a Thread about it because I have to admit I wasn’t mentally prepared for it all, and wanted to lay it all out for others to learn from. The post did really well, with lots of people chipping in with advice. There are plenty of places that list the same info, but again, grieving people aren’t great at researching so I’ve not always had the best resources.

I’m at the part just before the medical examiner sees her, which will trigger the 5 day deadline for me to register her death. From there, my dad can speak with the bereavement teams in places like the bank, and utilities companies who will close down her accounts.

I guess I’m just amazed at the range of roles that I have witnessed with this whole process. There is a whole other level within organisations, with people who work with the process of death. Those who work in a bank and deal with grieving people, those who work at the council and process deaths, those who have medical qualifications and assess bodies for the causes of death. (On that last one, apparently there is a huge need for Medical Examiners, thanks to government reform, and the short window they have to do the job. Here’s some high level info on who can train in this field, and here is some NHS info on the growing pressures in the field, including stats on turnaround time and the predicted increase in deaths).

Around Halloween, I saw lots of careers leaders use a very cute collection of posters created and shared in a Facebook group. I think there is a massive opportunity here exploring death-related careers, covering so many different skills and strengths. I’ve been nothing but impressed with everyone who has supported Grandma and me, and think that these are brilliant careers to go into.

No links etc this time; I’ll do a links dump post next time as I have bits and pieces of thoughts and trends I’ve been collecting up that need using.

Please don’t feel the need to reply with condolences - I didn’t write all this for sympathy, and I know you are all a lovely bunch who would want to connect with me. I feel your energy through the screen, I promise :)

@charlottesteggz

Charlotte on Instagram: "93 years of friends, mischief and wine…

Until next time,

Charlotte