Dealing with death at Christmas

On the darkest December day, a grim anniversary is recalled.

Jean Kabasomi

Jean is a consultant working with financial and Christian organisations. She also writes and broadcasts.

A moody sky overshadows a shingle beach on which a lone empty deckchair stands. A pier with funfair is in the middle distance.

Brighton Pier.

Nick Fewings, via Unsplash.

Thursday 17th December 2020 - a day I won’t forget.

Christmas 2020 was already proving to be a little strange. The UK was in this weird place of tiered restrictions, a sort of semi-lockdown approach. In London and the southeast, we had a bit more flexibility than folks in the north of the country, but people were not really out and about. Most people were saving their interactions for Christmas Day, so the streets were mostly quiet.

Like virtually everyone working in the financial services, I was working from home. The night before, my older brother had left the house after an argument and not come home. My younger brother and sister were concerned about his whereabouts. His phone kept going to voicemail. They were worried. There wasn’t much to do or anyone to see because everyone was regulating their behaviour and saving themselves for Christmas. I, on the other hand, was more nonchalant about his ‘disappearance’. My view was that he was an adult and had a habit of doing ‘immature things’ to get our attention. I thought, ‘He would come back home when he needed to.’ Little did I know how wrong I would be.

At about 4:50pm, as I was winding up and about to log off at work, I saw a police car in our street. My room is on the second floor of our house and my desk is positioned so that I can look directly out of the window onto the street in front of our house. The police car stopped in front of our house. The officers got out and opened our gate. I remember I went downstairs and said, ‘The police are here.’, just before the doorbell rang. I was slightly annoyed, I remember thinking, ‘What silly thing has my brother done now?’

My Mum invited them in. But they wouldn’t speak to her. They were looking for my sister. This seemed really weird at the time. Mum kept asking them what they wanted. But they wouldn’t reply. They just kept saying that they needed to speak to my sister. They wouldn’t speak to my sister in front of all the family, so they led my sister outside into the garden. It was dark outside. We couldn’t hear what they were saying because the back door was shut but we could see my sister’s reaction. She was deeply distressed. My Mum was beginning to get upset too, because she could see my sister through the window. They came back into the house. The police remained silent. It was just strange. My sister kept saying that we all needed to sit down in the living room. Mum kept asking the police what was going on but they remained silent. My younger brother and I were also frustrated and wanted to know. ‘Just tell us what is happening’, I remember saying. But my sister kept saying that we needed to sit down and go to the living room.

We finally all sat down and then one of the officers began to speak. I don’t remember his exact words but it was something to the effect of ‘A body was found this morning at Brighton Pier. From the belongings found on the body, we have identified that it is the body of your brother.’

At this point, I don’t think any of us really understood what he was saying. Someone must have asked, ‘Does that mean he is dead? Are you saying he is dead?’ ‘Yes.’, was the response. ‘How did he die?’, was the next question. Again, more weirdness. It seemed that they didn’t really want to use the word suicide, but that’s what it was. We kept asking for more details. What time? How did it happen? Was there anyone with him? But nothing was forthcoming. It all felt like a cover-up. And then it was over. They left and it was just us left to process it. It all seemed so surreal.

That evening is all a bit of a blur. I am quite a practical person - I knew I was leading a bible study meeting that evening. So, I messaged, the pastor in charge to say I wouldn’t be able to lead it that night. After that, the next feeling, I remember is annoyance towards my brother. I felt it was selfish on so many different levels. Why did he have to do this? How does it solve anything? Why is he always looking for attention? Why would anyone do something like this just before Christmas? I remember feeling he had destroyed Christmas for us forever. Why didn’t he just say something to us? We had just started playing tennis on weekday mornings before I logged into work, why didn’t he mention he was upset then? My younger brother and sister were deeply disturbed and didn’t know what to say or do. Both were blaming themselves. Mum was totally shocked. I kept thinking and saying that he didn’t mean to do it. It was just a mistake that he couldn’t undo. If we weren’t in this quasi-lockdown situation, maybe someone would have noticed him in the water sooner and he would have been rescued? Maybe someone would have been walking along the Pier that night, seen him in the water, jumped in and pulled him out? We didn’t need a hero, maybe someone would have seen him in the water and just called 999? Maybe someone would have noticed him pacing up and down, and tried to speak to him before he went over the edge?

The run-up to Christmas that year was extremely difficult. The government announced a full lockdown again and my family had to travel to the morgue in Brighton to formally identify my brother. I chose not to go with them, I felt at the time, that I wasn’t ready to see my brother’s body. We also had a tree in our garden whose roots had ruptured the sewer pipe, causing our bathroom to flood. It was all one big mess.

I am in charge of the Christmas shopping operation in our house. Christmas is my favourite time of the year. I love the carols, the weather, the darkness, the cosiness, the services at church, the Christmas TV schedule, the food and the opportunity to rest, pause and reflect. I love everything about Christmas. But now it felt weird celebrating Christmas. The delivery came. On Christmas day, I cooked, my sister baked. But it was all just so sad. We sat in silence through a lot of it just eating. Sometimes we spoke about the days leading up to my brother’s death. At different points throughout the day, one or all of us would be struggling to hold back our tears or silently sob. That period was one of the most difficult periods of my life.

I do not have to be in a state of constant mourning throughout the Christmas period. Neither do I need to pretend or ignore that I haven’t experienced death at Christmas.

Three years later, Christmas is still my favourite time of the year. Why? Despite everything, I still believe in the hope that came into the world at Christmas through Jesus Christ. It is that hope that helped me pull through that time. I held on to the comforting words I found in the Bible. I found people who supported me and worked through my grief on the Bereavement Journey. On this course, I discovered that it was okay to be angry, guilty, disappointed and sad about death. It was all part of the process. It was okay to grieve differently from my siblings and my Mum. I didn’t have to force them to feel like me, nor make myself feel like they did. As we began to piece together my brother’s final days, I slowly understood that he had his own mental struggles and sadly was unable to find the help he needed.

I learnt that grief involves the whole person – the body, soul and mind. I understood why I sometimes felt exhausted and at other times I was wide awake. It all made sense when I suddenly felt sad on my way home from my first time at Wimbledon. The body has a weird way of remembering things even when you think you are okay mentally, so I wasn’t surprised when I got a severe migraine exactly three years to the day that my brother didn’t come home. My faith does not mean that I understand everything about my experience neither does it mean that I can’t lament, question or be unhappy about the way things unfolded.

For me, Christmas is still a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the birth of Hope. But it is also a time of solemnity, even of grief. As the years go by, this will get easier but probably won’t go away. The two feelings are not mutually exclusive. I do not have to be in a state of constant mourning throughout the Christmas period. Neither do I need to pretend or ignore that I haven’t experienced death at Christmas. Rather, the most honest thing I can do is to acknowledge both feelings and take each day as it comes.

Article

Assisted dying

Care

Comment

Politics

7 May 2025

4 min read

Assisted dying is not a medical procedure; it is a social one

Another vote, and an age-related amendment, highlight the complex community of care.

Henna Cundill

Henna is a researcher with the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

Graffiti reads 'I miss me' with u crossed out under the 'mem'

Sidd Inban on Unsplash.

Scottish Parliament’s Assisted Dying bill will go to a stage one vote on Tuesday 13th May, with some amendments having been made in response to public and political consultation. This includes the age of eligibility, originally proposed as 16 years. In the new draft of the bill, those requesting assistance to die must be at least 18.

MSPs have been given a free vote on this bill, which means they can follow their consciences. Clearly, amongst those who support it, there is a hope that raising the age threshold will calm the troubled consciences of some who are threatening to oppose. When asked if this age amendment was a response to weakening support, The Times reports that one “seasoned parliamentarian” (unnamed) agreed, and commented:

“The age thing was always there to be traded, a tactical retreat.”

The callousness of this language chills me. Whilst it is well known that politics is more of an art than a science, there are moments when our parliamentarians literally hold matters of life and death in their hands. How can someone speak of such matters as if they are bargaining chips or military manoeuvres? But my discomfort aside, there is a certain truth in what this unnamed strategist says.

When Liam McArthur MSP was first proposed the bill, he already suggested that the age limit would be a point of debate, accepting that there were “persuasive” arguments for raising it to 18. Fortunately, McArthur’s language choices were more appropriate to the subject matter. “The rationale for opting for 16 was because of that being the age of capacity for making medical decisions,” he said, but at the same time he acknowledged that in other countries where similar assisted dying laws are already in operation, the age limit is typically 18.

McArthur correctly observes that at 16 years old young people are considered legally competent to consent to medical procedures without needing the permission of a parent or guardian. But surely there is a difference, at a fundamental level, between consenting to a medical procedure that is designed to improve or extend one’s life and consenting to a medical procedure that will end it?

Viewed philosophically, it would seem to me that Assisted Dying is actually not a medical procedure at all, but a social one. This claim is best illustrated by considering one of the key arguments given for protecting 16- and 17- year-olds from being allowed to make this decision, which is the risk of coercion. The adolescent brain is highly social; therefore, some argue, a young person might be particularly sensitive to the burden that their terminal illness is placing on loved ones. Or worse, socially motivated young people may be particularly vulnerable to pressure from exhausted care givers, applied subtly and behind closed doors.

Whilst 16- and 17- year-olds are considered to have legal capacity, guidance for medical staff already indicates that under 18s should be strongly advised to seek parent or guardian advice before consenting to any decision that would have major consequences. Nothing gets more major than consenting to die, but sadly, some observe, we cannot be sure that a parent or guardian’s advice in that moment will be always in the young person’s best interests. All of this discussion implies that we know we are not asking young people to make just a medical decision that impacts their own body, but a social one that impacts multiple people in their wider networks.

For me, this further raises the question of why 18 is even considered to be a suitable age threshold. If anything, the more ‘adult’ one gets, the more one realises one’s place in the world is part of a complex web of relationships with friends and family, in which one is not the centre. Typically, the more we grow up, the more we respect our parents, because we begin to learn that other people’s care of us has come at a cost to themselves. This is bound to affect how we feel about needing other people’s care in the case of disabling and degenerative illness. Could it even be argued that the risk of feeling socially pressured to end one’s life early actually increases with age? Indeed, there is as much concern about this bill leaving the elderly vulnerable to coercion as there is for young people, not to mention disabled adults. As MSP Pam Duncan-Glancey (a wheelchair-user) observes, “Many people with disabilities feel that they don’t get the right to live, never mind the right to die.”

There is just a fundamental flawed logic to equating Assisted Dying with a medical procedure; one is about the mode of one’s existence in this world, but the other is about the very fact of it. The more we grow, the more we learn that we exist in communities – communities in which sometimes we are the care giver and sometimes we are the cared for. The legalisation of Assisted Dying will impact our communities in ways which cannot be undone, but none of that is accounted for if Assisted Dying is construed as nothing more than a medical choice.

As our parliamentarians prepare to vote, I pray that they really will listen to their consciences. This is one of those moments when our elected leaders literally hold matters of life and death in their hands. Now is not the time for ‘tactical’ moves that might simply sweep the cared-for off of the table, like so many discarded bargaining chips. As MSPs consider making this very fundamental change to the way our communities in Scotland are constituted, they are not debating over the mode of the cared-for’s existence, they are debating their very right to it.