Come and meet me, hear my story, enjoy a delicious lunch and buy a book at a massive discount.  All the proceeds will go to my charity, Teach Us Too.

Why are we so afraid of the ‘d’ word? Why do we avoid saying it out loud, and instead use a whole raft of euphemisms? And when it comes, why do we turn to poems and sayings that deny its existence?

Death is not ‘nothing at all’. For the person who has died, death is the end of a body that has stopped working and the beginning of the soul’s new life.

Death is not ‘nothing at all’ for the people who mourn. It is life changing, life shaping, life moulding.

When Jesus went to the graveside of his friend Lazarus we get the shortest profound verse in the bible. Jesus wept. He stood at the grave and wept.

As I look forward to being in Jesus’ garden forever, I am also trying to prepare my sisters for when I am not here. I am their big brother after all. And I long for them to experience the freedom to follow Jesus who wept at the grave and who has conquered death.

(I am writing this now because it was All Saints Day yesterday, rather than because my health has deteriorated!)