Why I write about death, grief, and life’s transitions

We fear what we don’t understand, and nothing is more mysterious than death. When we’re scared, we avoid. That might work for spiders, dark alleyways, or taxes, but not for death.

I don’t just write about death. I work alongside people who are living through it, those facing death, grief, and profound life transitions. Being present with them has shown me how much this fear shapes our lives, and how essential it is to face it with honesty and thoughtfulness.

What my work has shown me

I’ve sat beside palliative care beds in Melbourne and worked in hospice in New York City to ease the physical and existential pain of the dying and their grieving loved ones. I’ve witnessed the burning funeral ghats and death rituals in Benares, India, and created a photographic body of work that explored death and dying in graveyards, morgues, and crematoriums. Again and again, I’ve seen the same truth: we’re not afraid of death, we're afraid of the dying process, but more that than, we are afraid of never having truly lived.

One man I worked with in New York was living with ALS, a brutal, terminal disease that strips away muscle function, speech, and eventually, breath. As his condition progressed, so did his fears. But something shifted during our sessions together. Through sound therapy, storytelling, and deep listening, his pain and anxiety, once rated an eight out of ten, reduced to a four. His wife would often say, “He’s always so calm after you’ve been.” That’s why I encourage people to meet death before it meets them, to face it consciously, and with intention. Say what no one dares to say aloud, it's this act that opens a doorway.

“What if the very thing you fear is the threshold to something extraordinary?”

Facing death to find life

In fact, studies show in particular that life review practices such as Dignity Therapy(1) can reduce distress, enhance a sense of meaning, improve quality of life, and ease physical and existential suffering, helping people feel more connected, calm, and complete at the end of life. From my experience, it’s through facing death that people finally learn how to live with clarity, meaning, and presence.

My initiation into death

My work with death began in a deeply personal moment: one that would change me forever.

My Nonno died suddenly after a fall. We gathered around his hospital bed in a busy emergency ward, a machine keeping him alive. A priest visited to invite the sacred into what was otherwise a cold and sterile environment. Then, one by one, we told him we loved him. We shared stories, we laughed, we cried. We said goodbye. When the machine was turned off, it didn’t take long for his breath to slow, and then stop. I felt a shift in the room, something I can only describe as his spirit leaving his body. This moment didn’t just begin my grieving process, it ushered in a spiritual enquiry that would shape the rest of my life. That’s the power of death, when we face it directly, it can awaken us to life.

Though I was raised Catholic, the cultural and societal lens I inherited around death was that it was something final. What came after death was abstract and unclear, and not talked about. Witnessing my Nonno’s death left me with more questions than answers. Where had he gone? Was he still aware, somewhere? Why did I feel him, even after he’d gone? 

To make sense of my grief, I needed to expand beyond the framework I was raised with. This is what psychologists call Sense-Making, the first step in what’s known as the Tripartite Model of Meaning Reconstruction in grief. I wrote about this more in depth last week (read about it here), but for me, this process meant looking beyond Western beliefs and immersing myself in other cultural and spiritual approaches to death and dying. 

My search led me to Benares, India, one of the oldest and holiest cities in the world, where many Hindus choose to die, believing it leads to Moksha, liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Here, I sat for two weeks at the burning ghats, watching bodies alight one after the other. 

A family carries the body of their deceased loved one to Marnikanika Ghat – the cremation grounds along the Ganges River, in Benares, India. (Photo credit: Nicole Sultana)

Families chanted the name of Lord Shiva, ushering their deceased loved one onto their next journey. Their chants carried far beyond the ghats, a vibration I felt deep in my body. I didn’t know it then, but this would become the beginning of my sound and vocal toning practice at the death-bed. Just like the sound and chants that lingered, life too carried on around the ghats, where children laughed and played, shopkeepers bartered, and dogs slept lazily in the sun. Life and death weren’t opposites there. They were inseparable.

At Kashi Labh Mukti Bhawan, an Indian hospice, I saw families care for dying loved ones directly. They bathed them, prayed for them, stayed close and sat vigil. Death wasn’t clinical, and it wasn’t hidden, it was in juxtaposition to what I’d witnessed in my Nonno’s final hours: no machines, no sterile separation. Just presence. In staying close to death, they stayed deeply connected to life.

Outside of the ghats and hospice, I met people who had intentionally chosen to leave their homes and families behind, renouncing conventional life, to live in ashrams, preparing spiritually for death. They didn’t wait for illness, they faced death now, while they still had air in their lungs. Not out of fear, but because they knew it was coming, as it comes for us all, and they wanted to be ready when it did.

Still image 1 of 10, from the photographic series: Death Tools, by Nicole Sultana

Photography as a way of witnessing

As this sense-making process continued it deepened, leading me to create a photographic body of work about death and dying. I began it while in Benares, after a photography tutor said to me, “You’re not coping with your Nonno’s death, use your art to explore it.” The camera became both a shield and a doorway. It allowed me to step into places I might not have belonged, and process my grief through witnessing. 

Still image 8 of 10, from the photographic series: Death Tools, by Nicole Sultana

Returning to Melbourne, I continued this photographic exploration in morgues, graveyards and crematoriums. In the process, I uncovered fascinating death rituals from the 1850s, when photographing the dead was a common and meaningful part of the grieving process. I found parallels between Victorian-era mourning practices and what I had witnessed in Benares, where both cultures treated death as a visible, integrated part of daily life, not something to be hidden or avoided, but as a reminder of how to live – memento mori.  

Mini-deaths are rehearsal spaces for life 

This is where I first began to see something I now call ‘mini-deaths’, a term I coined to describe the symbolic thresholds we pass through long before our final breath (read more about it here). These are the endings we experience all the time: a relationship ending, a job loss, a role or identity falling away. 

They may seem small, but they ask the same of us as death does: to let go, to surrender control, to step into the unknown. In this sense, death isn’t just a final moment, it’s a recurring pattern woven through our lives.

Noticing and working with these mini-deaths has become central to my practice. They are invitations, not just to grieve what was, but to meet life more fully on the other side.

What the dying taught me about living

My work with death didn’t begin with textbooks. It began in hospital rooms, in grief, and in an unshakable curiosity about what lies beyond. And what I’ve learned is this: dying people are some of the clearest mirrors for how we ought to live.

Most of the people I’ve supported had one thing in common: they wished they’d spoken up sooner. Slowed down more. Lived more truthfully. Asked themselves what really mattered, before time ran out.

“Because grief, when you really look at it, is just love with nowhere to go.”

Often, it was only when people had weeks, days or hours left to live that the real stories began to emerge: stories of joy, secrecy, shame, pain and love. Some stories of which had never been spoken aloud. But in the telling, something shifted. The act of reflection brought clarity and re-connection to what mattered.

And that’s just it. In the end, it’s not death people speak of with the most sorrow, it’s the chances they didn’t take to live fully while they could.

Why we need to stop avoiding death

Many of us avoid endings for fear the grief will be too much to bear. But when we do face them, they bring us back to the only place life can be lived: the present moment. Because grief, when you really look at it, is just love with nowhere to go. Love for others, yes. But also for parts of ourselves we've had to let go of.

The shark metaphor (and the truth beneath it)

I liken avoiding death to refusing to enter the ocean because you're afraid of sharks. So you stay close to the shore. You might dip your toes in, maybe even stand waist-deep, telling yourself you're in. But you’re not really in, not where it counts. 

What if the thing you’re avoiding is the threshold to something extraordinary? What if the deeper waters, the ones you fear, hold the most profound insight, intimacy and transformation of your life?  But unless you’re willing to swim out, to meet that fear, to risk the discomfort, you’ll never know what was waiting for you. And that, in itself, is a kind of death.

What contemplating death can teach us all

So, why do I write about death, mortality and transition? And, why do I choose to work so closely with people traversing through it? It’s not because I am dark or grim. It’s not for the shock value. And, it’s certainly not to romanticise it. 

I do this work because there are essential things missing from our modern lives: the mysteries of the heart, the rituals that honour endings, the sense of connection to something greater, and the depth of presence that only comes from fully inhabiting the moment we’re in.

Contemplating death – and our own mortality – calls us back to these truths. It holds up a mirror for those ready to truly see themselves. It invites us to live more honestly, to grieve more deeply, and to face what is unfolding both around us and within us. And when we do that, we don’t just survive life, we live it. Fully, truthfully, completely.

What’s next for you?

If you’re feeling a disconnect between the life you’re living and the truth within you. If you’re caught between the fear of endings and the pull to become more alive within them, then let this be your starting point. Take a breath. Ask yourself the question you’ve been avoiding. Give yourself a moment of stillness to answer honestly.

Know that you can return to these words whenever you need a reminder, or the strength to move through a transition. When you’re ready to go deeper, I offer Living Legacy storytelling sessions, therapeutic spiritual counselling, and sound therapy to help you navigate endings, grief, and transitions with intention and purpose.

Through sound, many of my clients access a state of deep quiet, a liminal space where the conscious mind recedes, and clarity, insight, and sometimes even a sense of peace beyond the physical self can emerge. This ‘death consciousness’ doesn’t just ease suffering, it can shift perspective and guide you back to what really matters.

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References:

1. Chochinov, H. M., Hack, T., McClement, S., Kristjanson, L., & Harlos, M. (2002). Dignity in the terminally ill: A developing empirical model. Social Science & Medicine, 54(3), 433–443. DOI: 10.1016/S0277-9536(01)00084-3

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This article is authored by Nicole Sultana, who holds a Post Graduate Degree in Spiritual Care, a Post Graduate Certificate in Business (Marketing), and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Sports & Exercise. In addition, she is a Certified Therapeutic Sound Practitioner and a Death Doula. Nicole is the founder of Sound Consciousness, a company that offers wellbeing strategies and therapeutic sound practices to help individuals achieve peak performance in their professional lives, sporting endeavours, relationships, and personal aspirations.

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