Goodbye Hayley

Image from www.thesun.co.uk

There have been mixed reviews regarding Monday night’s emotional final farewell to one of Coronation Street’s long-standing characters, Hayley Cropper. The storyline has been played out over the last few months, capturing the hearts of viewers nationwide and covering a number of sensitive issues. 

Watching Soaps has become a normal and daily occurrence in many households, with people forming emotional bonds with beloved characters. This is one factor that has really made the storyline hit home. However, many people have lost someone dear or have had some experience with terminal illness and the effects this can have on not only the afflicted, but their loved ones too, making the last episode particularly difficult to watch.

Image from digitalspy.co.uk

Whether you agree or disagree with the topics raised, the show has managed to spark debate regarding sensitive and often controversial issues, creating an open forum for death, dying and loss to be discussed. 

What did you think about this storyline and how it was dealt with? Let us know at @Bucket_Project.

New Year, Old Memories

Image from www.juniorathletics.co.uk

Happy New Year from The Bucket Project! My name is Amy King and I am the new Administrative Assistant at Marie Curie Hospice, Liverpool. 

The celebration of a new year has been around since ancient times, with the first recorded celebration thought to date back to 4,000 years ago! Cultures around the world mark the beginning of a new year with their own individual rituals and events, from eating a specific food to setting off fireworks. One of the most recognised traditions here in Britain is to make ‘resolutions’, often regarding self-improvement from losing weight to quitting smoking. However, the hectic lives we lead today are encouraging people to spend more time with their families and friends. Recent personal events have showed me that making memories are just as important as recording them to remember and share in the future.

As you can imagine, I am thrilled to be embarking upon this journey with The Bucket Project and I am eager to meet new faces at our future events this year. Joining the team has made me realise that life is also a journey and can be an exciting one at that. Whilst creating a bucket list is fantastic, it is worth taking a moment to reflect on the experiences you have already had. Writing a memory book can be a great way to capture the important events that have happened in your life and share them with the future generations of your family.

Image from www.temptationgifts.com

Memory books are one option for storing memories and are available to buy online or in high street stores. These are great for working through with family and friends and if you have a creative side why not attempt to make a personalised book including photos and other special memorabilia? If you’re looking for inspiration, here are some starting points:

• What is your earliest childhood memory?

• What fashion style was popular when you were younger?

• Did you have a favourite song? What is your favourite now?

The possibilities are endless and this is a unique way to pass on your memories to your loved ones, which can stay with them after you are gone. So why not make writing a memory book one of your resolutions this year? What other resolutions have you made? Tell us at @Bucket_Project.

The Privilege of Preparing For Death

33 year old Rowena Darby has already written out a card for all of her son’s future birthdays and Christmases, his graduation and for his wedding.

She has terminal cancer, and said that she has no interest in creating a bucket list of things to achieve before she dies; she just wants to be a good mum to her son Freddie.

Rowena was bored in hospital whilst having her treatment, so went to a craft fair with her mum. She ended up buying a kit and making bracelets which she now sells for £10 apiece to save money to take her son on holiday. She then started to make all of the cards, which span right through all of his future birthdays and Christmases and even include his future wedding and graduation. She is also planning to compile a book of all the emails she has written to him.

Rowena has a very humbling view on her terminal diagnosis. “I’m privileged that I can prepare for my death - if I was in a car crash there would be none of these memories for Freddie.

“When I die it’s going to be awful for my family but at least they know it’s going to happen and because of this we’ve had the best quality time together beforehand.

“I know a lot of people in my situation create a bucket list but I just want to be a mum and do normal stuff with my son.

“There is nowhere I want to go - I just want to have a normal life with no regrets.”

Her view that she is privileged to be able to prepare for her own death is extremely inspiring. Part of our project is to encourage people to realise that we are all going to die and that we should all be preparing for death; but preparing for a death that one knows is imminent is a very different experience.

If you received a terminal diagnosis, how would you prepare for your death? Would you want to cross off the items on your bucket list, prepare your family for a future without you like Rowena, or something else all together? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter or email us.

"Death is a Graduation"

It is with a heavy heart that I (Lucy) am writing this blog to tell you that I am leaving The Bucket Project.

Not because I particularly want to, or because I found something better, may I hasten to add! 

I absolutely love this project and I love my job, so it feels a bit counterintuitive to have to leave so soon, but an opportunity cropped up that I just could not refuse. I have wanted to be a teacher for many years, but haven't felt quite ready or confident enough to go for it in the past. I have blossomed quite a bit in my short but sweet period of time with the Bucket Project, which in turn gave me the confidence to apply for teaching one last time. I was offered a place to start this September, and after much deliberation I decided to go for it. I've got a place at Edge Hill University to do a Primary PGCE specialising in English. I'm also hoping to incorporate music in there somehow too as I'm a musician and music graduate, so I'd like to be that crazy teacher who does ukulele maths games and makes the kids sing their spellings!

If there's one thing working for this project has taught me, it's that you're never too young to make the most of life. Our project advocates planning for your death, but I also think we advocate planning for your life too - go and tick off that bucket list of yours! That's what I'm going to do. I would have loved to stay longer and perhaps put my teaching off until next year, but it was one of those things where if I didn't do it now, my courage might have disappeared again. I've always liked the above Elisabeth Kubler-Ross quote, and thought it was quite apt considering this time next year I will be hopefully be graduating again!

It means that my job is now available to apply for. If you are looking for an administrative post with a rather large dash of creativity involved, this may be for you! You can view the job online on Marie Curie's recruitment website. Since I've been here, I've set up this blog and tried to build up our social networking engagement, so it would be fabulous if the person who replaced me could carry that on and improve it even more. There are also lots of projects and events coming up to plan, so there's lots of fun to be had too. It's a fantastic job, a very worthwhile project and a lovely work environment - I couldn't recommend it enough.

I'm here until the end of August, so there will be a few more blog posts and suchlike from me until I take myself off to learn how to teach little people!

Everybody Needs Good Neighbours

On the last Friday of May, we headed down to Parklands School in Speke to take part in South Liverpool Housing's Neighbours Day.

We were extremely lucky with the weather - the sun was scorching even at 10am when we arrived to set up!   We had a stall with all of our new merchandise on there; mugs, badges and our brand new tote bags and trolley coins.

Neighbours Day was a brilliant opportunity to meet people living in Speke and the surrounding area, especially people not in a healthcare setting who may not know about who we are and what we do. We gave away all of our bags within half an hour of it being open and had to go back to get more - so if you spot anybody walking around with our logo on a bag, let us know!

There were all sorts of activities going on like a mini funfair, free massages and even a stall with snakes, rabbits and owls being flown about! We got free massages and emerged back to our stall feeling very floppy and relaxed.

We struck up lots of conversations with people who seemed to be mainly tempted by the goodies on our stall... We quickly find that everybody has a personal experience of death or losing someone, and a quick conversation starter like one of our newsletters or a bag can prompt a chat with even people who think the idea is all too morbid at first. That's what our project is all about, and it's so rewarding to see our brightly coloured branding and tongue in cheek newsletter articles doing their jobs well. A particular favourite moment of ours was asking a lovely young boy what he wanted to do before he dies, and expecting him to say something like "own a Ferrari" or "play for Liverpool" he completely shocked us by saying "to make my family happy". Our Community Chalk Wall showed us that quite often people tend to concentrate on family, experiences and happiness rather than gaining material things.

Halfway through the day, Merseyside Police pulled up behind us with their van and laid out all their uniform and riot gear for people to try on... Lucy couldn't resist playing dress up!

It was great to chat to so many people and get our message out there to some local residents. Watch this space for information about events we're attending in the future, pop along and say hello and we might give you one of our highly stylish bags!

Before I Die, I Want To...

During Dying Matters week in May, we were very excited to launch something that has never been seen in Liverpool before. We put a chalk wall in an empty shop in the beautiful India Buildings, and asked people to tell us what they want to do before they die.

"Before I Die..." is a project started by artist Candy Chang. She struggled to cope with her bereavement after losing someone close to her, and was looking for a way to channel her grief. She painted the side of an abandoned house with blackboard paint and stencilled it with a grid of the sentence "Before I die I want to________" and left some chalk. People passing by would pick up pieces of chalk and add to the board. By the next day, the board was bursting with people's lift aspirations and wishes of the things they'd like to achieve in their lives. Candy realised she wasn't alone in trying to make sense of her life, and felt a great sense of consolation.

She found that people were asking her to help set one up in their local area, and she began to send out toolkits all over the world. The global Before I Die project was born, with people in all over the world doing their own walls and uploading them to the Before I Die site. There are now over 200 walls in 15 different countries.

We decided that there was no better time to launch one in Liverpool than Dying Matters week. We worked closely with Liverpool Commercial District BID who helped us to secure an empty shop in the beautiful and historic India Buildings on Water Street. Our creative Project Manager Rachael managed to work around the conundrum of not being able to drill an actual chalkboard up anywhere, and made one out of black paper that we could take down and replace when it got full.

We managed to almost fill our wall on the first day it opened, and we noticed that hardly any of the responses related to material things. We'd expected to see "before I die I want to own a Ferrari" or "own designer clothes" but most of what people wrote was about family, happiness and experiences. Some people were reluctant at first to write when gently coaxed by us to come in... but as soon as they had a piece of chalk in their hand they said it had really made them think about the things they'd like to accomplish.

Here are some photos of the two chalk walls we ended up filling before it was closed on 3rd June:

The sign outside our beautiful shop

Mini chalk boards

We have our very own mini site for the chalk wall over at Before I Die, where you can view more photos and a bit about the project: Before I Die: Liverpool

Unfortunately our wall closed on 3rd June. We are currently looking into ways to keep it alive all over Liverpool, and we'd love to hear any ideas if you think you know where we could put one. If you had visited our wall when it was open, what would you have written on there?

Guest Blog: Stare Death In the Face and Play It Awesome Music

Image © Christina Owen

Here is the first in our series of guest blogs. We're very excited to present a fantastic blog from Christina Owen; ambulance worker, photographer and friend of The Bucket Project:

Stare Death In the Face and Play It Awesome Music
Christina Owen

Sometimes I think about my funeral. I want everyone to wear bright colours and I know exactly what songs I want played too (Good Riddance by Green Day and Take On Me by Reel Big Fish in case you wondered). Cake will be served afterwards and everyone will, of course, cry and say how great I was. It will be a beautiful day, and if the sun doesn't shine then I'd like it to tip it down with rain all day long.

You may think it's a little morbid to picture my funeral when I'm still young and in excellent health (I'm 29 and fit and well). But the truth is that death is often a difficult subject to avoid in my line of work. I work on an ambulance, and I rub shoulders with the sick and the dying most days of the week. Sometimes I stare death in the face, literally. And when you do that for a living, as anyone working in a healthcare profession will know, you develop quite an upfront attitude towards death. Because it's happening, whether we like it or not. At some point, whether it be a long way off or sooner than we think. It's one of those things that no one gets to escape, no matter how long and hard we hunt for a Philosopher's Stone or a really, really good BB cream. It's probably pretty easy to pretend death isn't coming for you in your day to day life - unless you spend your day to day life working in a hospital or like me, on a moving mini-hospital. And then it's a little harder.

So, I plan my funeral in my head and hope that when the time comes, I will write some of it down and have some level of control over it. But I know that really, I could fall down dead and not get a chance to put anything in place. And then an awful song might get played at my funeral and I will have to just live with it (or die with it more accurately). You hear about the slightly comical situation in which a normally healthy person suddenly clutches at their chest and lets out a groan and then turns up their toes without another word. But here's some news you may not expect (and that I certainly didn't expect the first time it happened in front of me): it really does happen. It’s like - a thing. Falling down dead. I'm not saying it's time to start making a will right this second (although you’re never too young and it’s never too early) but it does mean it's okay to think about these things. You like to have a certain level of control over your life, right? After all, it's YOUR life. What about your death? It's really okay to think about these things, and talk about them too. Keeping the subject all taboo and hush-hush isn't going to make it go away.

Sometimes, for fun (!), I sit down and think about what I might die of based on what my grandparents died of. I roped my housemate into this game once too, and the evening ended with us announcing 'heart disease!' and 'cancer!' like we were playing Top Trumps. Then we laughed about it. Because, why not right? If I was suffering with one of these diseases, I like to think I could still laugh about it. Because again, being all sombre isn't going to make it not happen.

In my job, I regularly come into contact with people who are living with illnesses that will eventually kill them. I won't lie - it's difficult to know what to say to them, or what tone to strike. Often, they dictate the tone, and I find that more often than not, they make jokes. Octogenarians (or older!), whether healthy or sick often wag their finger at me as if scolding me and tell me 'don't get old!' and we chuckle, and I say 'I'll try not to!' We smile at each other, and it is usually a sad smile, because one of us knows they have nearly reached the end and the other knows they will one day be in the same boat.

If you CAN see death coming then amid the jokes you may or may not make, it's a good idea to start planning for it. Make a will so that your family are well protected after you've gone. Get a DNAR (Do Not Attempt Resuscitation) if that's what you want, otherwise should you drop dead in the street one Tuesday morning whilst out shopping, green-clad people like me will turn up and start jumping up and down on your chest like there's no tomorrow. You may not want that, and this is where the Do Not Resuscitate Order comes in. It gives you some dignity and it might reassure your family too, so talk to them about it. That way, when we turn up in our ambulance, they can wave the document in our faces, and we'll stand down immediately. Discuss death with your GP. Discuss it with your family and friends. Make the jokes if you want, or be really sombre about it - it's your prerogative. After all, it's YOUR death. And like life, you can approach it how you will. And like life, approach it loudly and unashamedly. Because like life, it WILL happen.

It's okay to be afraid of death. It is scary. I get scared about it every day (and I don't mind admitting this to my patients. After all, there's no point pretending to be a robot, right?). But don't be afraid to talk about it. And don't be afraid to tell everyone what song you want at your funeral, and what sort of desserts you want. Mine is loud American ska-punk and double chocolate. What's yours?

Christina also co-runs a blog at 100Happy, which is all about finding the little moments of happiness in life.