30 November to 7 December

Working with death: Close encounters of the ultimate kind

Death and I used to have a close working relationship. For 25 years, as a hospital chaplain, we did business together frequently - most days. One of my roles was to support both the dying and the living, bearing witness to the fact that death's visitation, devastating though it was, might be faced, borne and perhaps even have meaning. As a result, I would attend on death as she did her work; guiding people into her arms, helping relatives and friends of the dying or those who had died, to bear the pain of her visit, and helping fellow professionals deal with what they often, and wrongly, felt was failure of care.

Sometimes death came as a welcome presence, expected but feared, when the burden of life was intolerable. Sometimes she came unexpectedly, perhaps experienced as a judgement on a life badly or carelessly lived. Sometimes she came cruelly, taking new life, mocking hopes and dreams. But most often she came gently, tenderly, releasing people from hardship and pain. Working as a chaplain helped me to know death as a normal part of life. But I now realise that the next time she and I meet, it may be personal.

Adrian Rhodes is a Non-Residentiary Canon at Manchester Cathedral, works as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in the NHS and is President elect of the European Association for Psychotherapy. Adrian.rhodes@nhs.net