The Grief Collection
Episodes
Episode 10: Peter Westcoast - Talking About Talking About Dying; With a Palliative Care Nurse
In this conversation, Peter talks candidly about what it's like to sit with people who are dying — and their families — and why he believes our culture is so bad at talking about death. We talk about the gap between where people say they want to die and where they actually do, the reality of what caring for someone at home really involves, and why hospice care — done well — can be one of the kindest environments there is. Peter reflects on the language he's had to build for this work: choosing "distress" over "agitation," "calming" over "sedating," and death over the euphemisms so many of us reach for instead. He also opens up about his own relationship to mortality, the toll — and the strange gift — of witnessing death so often, and what he wishes everyone understood before they ever need this kind of care.
This is a raw, generous conversation about presence, language, and what it really means to be person-centred when someone is dying.
Psychologist Emma Keen joins Bianca to unpack the biggest takeaways from the conversation.