Palliative care: “Our childhood catches up with us when we face death”

For many families, the question of death becomes real only when a relative is already dying, according to retired palliative-care physician Yvonne Petersen.

Petersen, who spent decades accompanying terminally ill patients, says families face an unfamiliar challenge when death approaches. An advance directive can provide a useful reason to discuss the end of life together, but it cannot remove the difficulty of the moment.

She recalls a time when people encountered more cultural reminders of mortality. Paintings displayed vanitas symbols and skulls, while the phrase “Memento mori”, remember that you must die, offered a spiritual framework for thinking about death. Petersen says such preparation never guaranteed that dying would become easier.

Her reflections come from years of caring for patients at the end of their lives. She says a person’s attachment patterns, learned during childhood, can become especially visible as death approaches.

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Our childhood catches up with us when we face death.