Author Archives: diealoguecafe

She is an award-winning Australian writer, who spent the last years of her life fascinated with her own mortality. This has resulted in her writing a memoir that she hopes will trigger more open and honest conversations about death. In … Continue reading →

Call it bias, distortion, omission, denial, constraints of time, blind spots.  What do we call it when during the telling of a story there is little or no reference made to the facts? Resulting in the fact that the story … Continue reading →

A natural burial ground in northern New South Wales is being proposed by a small group of people with a new to offering earth burials.  Under the headline: Banded Bee farm could host natural burial ground in Armidale reporter Meg Francis … Continue reading →

The Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion has backed calls for cemetery fees to be re-examined. “My view is that the council should be looking very carefully at ensuring that people can afford to do something that everybody would see … Continue reading →

“Hardly a day goes by when I don’t look at someone on a life-support machine and think, ‘Don’t ever let this happen to me.’” According to Ken Hillman, professor of Intensive Care at the University of NSW, this is one … Continue reading →

Here we are at the start of a new financial year, so let’s take a look at a story by ABC News reporter James Bullen: High number of terminal patients unnecessarily treated, study finds (Wed 29 Jun 2016).  Unnecessary treatment … Continue reading →

A desire to die at home can only be achieved if all of our ducks are lined up and everything goes according to plan. Dr Christine Sanderson, Staff Specialist, Neringah Community Palliative Care Service, NSW shares her experiences with how … Continue reading →

As consumers become more comfortable with taking charge of their dead, there will be more room to introduce new methods of body disposition, writes Jennifer Luxton in a story published in Yes Magazine (What’s a Death Midwife? Inside the Alternative … Continue reading →

The conventional wisdom within the bereavement community for many, many years has been that our grief follows a pattern and goes through stages.  On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, has been held up as the go-to reference for anyone … Continue reading →

Slow, intimate, simple and family led. It’s the way most people want to say goodbye to their loved ones. Only two generations ago, most Australian families cared for the dead with their own hands.  Today it’s a different story, says … Continue reading →