DEATH isn’t something we tend to think about until it abruptly lands on our doorstep. Whether it’s a sudden death, a terminal illness, the slow deterioration of a loved one with Alzheimer’s, or even the passing of a beloved pet, death isn’t an easy subject to embrace.
But for best-selling Dublin novelist Patricia Scanlan "death holds no fear". Her sense of peace surrounding dying and the afterlife began when she became "intimate with death" when her mother passed away in 2007.
“Death is not the end, it's just a change from what we know. Relationships with our departed loved ones continue if we want them to,” says Scanlan, who shares her story in her latest book, Bringing Death To Life.
In a departure from her popular women’s fiction novels, the best-selling writer is joined by her friends, 'metaphysical healers' Dr Mary Helen Hensley, Aidan Storey and Pamela Young, in this non-fiction work.
Combining practical advice on dying, including making a will and the legalities surrounding death and caring for a terminally ill loved one, the book also embraces the spiritual view that the soul separates from the physical body during death and continues to live.
For Scanlan and her co-writers, the main message they want to get across is that death needs to become part of the ordinary conversation of life, not to be feared or avoided in our communications, but recognised, understood and accepted.
“It's as natural as to die as it is to be born. Death is our lifetime companion and people should start preparing for it in their heads and stop running away from it,” says Scanlan, who has all her wishes in place regarding her own departure from this life, including a DNR (do not resuscitate) order.
“There is no resuscitation for me, I am going and that is it. I don't fear death, I just hope it's quick and painless,” says Scanlan, who has also told her executors she wants one last ‘elbows on the table’ party for her friends following her passing, to be paid for out of her estate.
It was at the wake of fellow Irish writer Maeve Binchy in August 2012, where Scanlan was first introduced to Dr Mary Helen Hensley, one of Ireland’s most sought-after metaphysical healers, that the seed for this book was first sown.
Hensley discovered that an ability she had had since childhood of communicating with those "in spirit" significantly increased following her own near-death experience during a car accident in 1991. She has since assisted numerous people experience the death-process with grace, dignity and understanding.
“In our book we’re not sharing anything new, we’re just making it safe to talk about death and what is beyond. Death does not discriminate. It is not racist, it has no religious preference, culture backgrounds or nationality," says Hensley, who has just returned from being a keynote speaker at the International Association for Near Death Studies in Seattle.
While she jokes she is “not homesick” for the afterlife, she says her experience has inspired her to give her all to life.
“The vivid recollection of what it was like to die physically took the mystery and fear out of my own death when it happens the next time round, but when I go I want to be exhausted. I don’t put things off trying to preserve life here, I want to live every last drop."
Scanlan and Hensley are already planning their next joint collaboration – a book on Mary Magdalene. Before then, Scanlan, whose novels include the renowned City Girl trilogy, along with, more recently, A Time for Friends and Orange Blossom Days, is putting her final touches to her next popular fiction novel.
Scanlan admits that there were many tears shed when writing the book, as well as some "great laughs" with her co-writers. Within its pages she shared her innermost thoughts, including recalling how she almost took her own life, following years of pain due to undiagnosed endometriosis.
“A lot of people go through dark, dark times and maybe would consider suicide because they are so desperate," she says. "The main message I would share about death by suicide [is that] those left should never ever blame themselves, as people can’t shoulder the burden of another who are on their own life path.”
While Scanlan acknowledges the very real and lasting impact of grief, she says she has found comfort in having spoken to her parents beyond the grave, and even got her late dad to contribute to the final chapter of Bringing Death to Life, through the medium of co-author Aidan Storey in a reiki treatment.
“I asked him to tell me exactly what it was like when he was dying and the first thing he told me was he was absolutely pain-free at the time of his death: all his pain had left him several days previously. I saw that for myself as his face had looked so fresh and pain-free.
“He told me that leaving his earthly body took no effort at all and was exactly as I had often explained it to him. He described the moment of death for him as like standing at the starting line for a race waiting for the starting gun. Then my mother came to him.”
Within the book, Scanlan outlines the early and imminent stages of death she has witnessed in her loves ones and comforts those going through the pain of watching a loved ones' last days and hours on Earth by saying “sometimes the letting go is the most loving thing you can ever do for the ones you love the most".
"When you give your loved one permission to go, you are not a helpless voyeur: you are an active participant at this life-changing event, and the comfort this brings in the desolate days afterwards cannot be underestimated."
Although reared a Catholic and still believing in the "energy of Jesus", she no longer follows any particular religion. “My motto is do your best and do no harm, and to be as good a person to others as I can.”
She believes in reincarnation, and I ask her where or what she might choose to return to. "I think I’d like to be a perfect size 12 and live by the sea – perhaps in the Hamptons,” she laughs. “Who knows? I'm happy with what I have achieved this time round and love that my books have given such pleasure to people."
:: Bringing Death To Life: An Uplifting Exploration of Living, Dying, the Soul Journey and the Afterlife, published by Hachette Ireland, is out now.
