Why do we avoid conversations about death?
Substack author Jane Duncan Rogers shares her story for this month's guest post.
I’m humbled by this month’s guest author,
, and her vulnerable sharing of how her grief was shaped after her late husband Philip died of complications related to stomach cancer. As I read Jane’s piece, I imagined her taking the reader by the hand and gently guiding them through their own difficult emotions. Her story will give you permission to stay in the ache of your heart, because it will come, and it will go. She uses the metaphor of the sapling as her way of demonstrating how her life took on a new form over time.Please be generous with your comments of affirmation to Jane, and share her story with others who need to read it. I have included at the end of the essay a link to her book, if you’d like to purchase it. You can also follow or subscribe to Jane on Substack.
My life was shattered but took on new growth over time.
I am a young, vibrant oak tree. I was birthed some years ago as a tiny white shoot, sprouting from the acorn that had cracked open a few days after the death of my husband.
This is my story of how my life shattered, and how my life took on new growth.
Driving home from the hospital. A friend sitting in the passenger seat. Feeling very strange, numb, discombobulated. It was only a short time since I’d looked over and seen my husband sitting there, red down jacket keeping him warm, blue peaked cap sitting neatly on his head, gaunt face staring resolutely forwards.
On the drive to the hospital that day, I had no idea I would be coming home without him.
He had stomach cancer. We knew it was terminal. But because you keep on being alive until the very moment you are dead, this visit was just another routine one for him to receive radiotherapy.
Except—they kept him in.
He had been unable to eat because of a blockage (more cancer? scarring from the operation? too much fluid in his stomach? no-one knew). He was extremely thin, and I was relieved they were keeping him.
But why didn't anyone tell me this was him dying? Not one person in the hospital mentioned that word. Even after the doctors told us there was no more they could do, there was a distinct discomfort amongst these professionals. I asked for his feeding tube to be removed—what was the point if he was so close to death, and anyway I knew he hated the constant beep-beep sound. The doctor turned to me with a shocked look on her face and said, “You do realise what this means, don’t you?”
I wish she would have been honest with me and said, “Your husband is near the end of his life. He is dying.”
Are we in the western world so incapable of handling the idea of death? I looked back at her, incredulous, and rather scathingly told her I was fully aware, and to remove the tube.
I became my husband’s advocate. I had to stand up to the system for what he wanted: the treatment, the need to move to a single room, the objection to certain drugs. Confronting authority figures was not my strength until then. As this seedling established itself tentatively in the soil of these confrontations, strength, resilience and fortitude grew alongside.
These shoots expanded throughout Philip’s last days, sturdily growing during that car journey back from the hospital, pushing their way into the soil as I discovered just what it was like to be alone in the house. At fifty-four, I was too young to be an old widow, too old to be a young one.
I learned to ask for help.
Over the next few weeks, while my head was in turmoil about all the numerous practicalities which required attention, my heart was trying to come to terms with the fact that my greatest fear had in fact come true: I was widowed with no children, alone.
I received notice to move out of our rented home three months after Philip had died, and it was then the shoot turned into a tiny sapling, poking its head above the soil. Not that I realised this at the time, though. I’d become very familiar with feeling fragile and tender, and was aghast at the thought of more upheaval. But as with many blessings in disguised form, finding a smaller place just for myself turned out to be ideal in many ways I hadn’t thought of.
I learned to ask for help with the move, which meant the tiny seedling burgeoned. It wasn't easy to ask friends for assistance with packing boxes and moving furniture. I was humbled by how many turned up on the day itself, and each person cared for me in a practical way.
The seedling waved in the sunshine and began to feel her heart warming.
I worked as a psychotherapist, had counselled many people, including those who were bereaved. But no professional knowledge or insight prepared me for the impact this personal grief had on me. Emotions took over at any time. Often I’d be awake in the darkness of the night, distraught, Googling ‘when does grief stop’. Of course I never found an answer. Fortunately, I did know one thing.
Louise L Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Life® and many other books (and founder of Hay House publishing company), once said to me, “What you feel, you can heal.” I clung on to the idea of allowing feelings and emotions to erupt and take over, and this became my lifebelt in a very stormy sea. I knew deep down this would be the quickest way to reach calmer waters, but it was extremely uncomfortable.
The seedling grew without me realising, being fed on the special, natural fertiliser of the hidden strength that is so often found amidst grief.
I allowed all of my feelings to come and go.
I created an image of emotions knocking at a door, and of me allowing them in, no matter what they were. And at the same time, there was an opening to the back door so they could easily leave again. One of the hardest things I had to deal with was that crying did not necessarily make me feel better.
The steady day-by-day visit from various feelings started to become the nourishing feed for the seedling, and it grew bit by bit into a young, tiny-but-strong sapling.
Looking back now, thirteen years later, enormous changes have happened. The sapling has grown into a young oak tree. It feels good to acknowledge this. To admit to my new husband, whom I married during the COVID-19 lockdown, that without both my late husband and my new husband’s late wife having lived and died, we would not be together. Yes, there are four of us in this new marriage, and it feels perfect. To that end, we had photos of both our spouses behind us, as we went through our marriage ceremony.
Over these years, there are three things that really stand out for me as to why I was able to weather the storm of grief, and even became someone who found a second chance of romantic love:
Front door, back door thinking. This is the decision to allow all emotions in, and allow them out again too, even the ones we want to hang onto. Feelings always change, that is their nature, both those we call good and those we call bad. So it’s sensible to allow them to be there, make their presence felt, deliver their message, so they can move on, regardless of whether we like them or not. Allowing the feelings also let me slowly get used to becoming a different person.
Telling the truth about the marriage. I looked in the mirror one morning, and astonished, this sentence popped out: ‘I never was able to fully love Philip’. It was true; there was always some part of me that I had kept back for safety reasons. My heart had been open to him, but not fully, and this led to quite a few challenges for us. I promised myself then that if I had the chance of love again, this time round I would make sure my heart was kept open.
Wedding ring removal. It just felt weird to be wearing a symbol of marriage when I was, in effect, no longer married. Acknowledging this was an important step in the sapling’s growth into a baby oak tree, as I felt stronger for having admitted the truth—that I was alone again in life, and a different woman for it.
Because I had been blessed by Philip’s life and his death, I called my memoir, published three years after he died, Gifted By Grief. It was true; I really did feel like the grief had brought me many, many gifts.
© Jane Duncan Rogers 2025
Nota Bene: You can click on the title of Jane’s book, Gifted by Grief, if you are interested in purchasing it.
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Hi Jane and Jeannie,
I'm always grateful when people open up about their grief experiences. With every conversation, the still mostly taboo topic of death is brought a bit further into the light.
For years, I've been writing about and asking why so many of us avoid the "D" words. If we talked more openly about death, it might lessen the fear. It would certainly bind us more deeply together in our humanity. Most importantly, the Grievers would likely feel less alone.
Thank you, Jane, for sharing pieces of your grief story. It's beautiful. I love that you consider your marriage one that includes four people and that photos of your former spouses were included in the ceremony.
Your work is so needed, Jane. As is yours, Jeannie. You're both making such a difference. Thank you for sharing this beautiful essay. I iappreciate you both.
What a powerful, tender and necessary conversation. Thank you, Jane, for your deep generosity, and Jeannie for braving what goes unspoken and aches to be said, heard, and witnessed.
You make it speakable.
I’ve often wondered: what if we welcomed death as a teacher, not a terror? What if we didn’t wait until it was urgent or final to speak its name?
I've been with many in their final days. My mother's death was the greatest teacher on so many levels, yet I found few with whom I could deepen in conversation. I did write about it, and this opened an informative conversation.
In my own life, especially as a caregiver, I’ve found that death, or the shadow of it, lingers in quiet corners long before it formally arrives. And still, we’re encouraged to look away. To soldier on. To "stay strong." But what if, instead, we softened? Came a bit unstitched? Asked questions? Challenged our assumptions? Held each other closer?
Jane, your metaphor of the oak sapling growing from an acorn cracked open by grief moved me to tears. I recognize the ground you describe—that fragile, uncertain terrain where identity, purpose, and love all feel upended. And as you stay with it, something begins to root. Your story reminds me that even in the darkest soil, there is life reaching toward the light.
I’ll be carrying this with me for a long time: “Because you keep on being alive until the very moment you are dead.” I love that line; it holds a raw, clear truth. Thank you for saying the often left unsaid. For making grief a place where others can rest, and remember that love continues, different, but real. Maybe stronger.
With reverence and thanks,
Prajna