Vicki Melson | Mortuary Worker / Mortality Doula / Massage Therapist / Aromatherapist

Dear Tina,

What is Death. What happens when we die?

I love that we don’t know the answer to this question yet we keep seeking it. It reinforces death as a sacred act. One that is as important as birth.

Working in a mortuary, caring for the dead, has added layers of understanding to my lifelong interaction with death.

As a child, death was all around me. Our family home sat in a crescent, opposite a huge cemetery, where, as a child I would clean stranger’s graves with a little bucket of water and a sponge. I’d talk to the dead and hear voices from the nun’s graves that inhabited the higher ground. I’d scare myself stupid.

 At the other end of the street was an overgrown graveyard with an old stone church and a school, my primary school. The graveyard was full of ancient toppling headstones covered in vines, where squirrels would scamper and bird life would thrive; a gentle place.

My parent’s first child, my big sister Carolyn, died at 6 months. She was born with Spina Bifida and was moved to a hospice; my mother never held her. My parents rarely spoke of her, but for me she laid heavy in our house; the unspoken grief and unresolved trauma blanketing my childhood.

Twice a year we would visit her grave to clean the small marble vessel that held the flowers we brought. We would make a day of it and collect wildflowers along the way; primroses and cowslips. These days filled me with joy.

I thank my sister regularly for the work that I am able to do now, for she forged this.

Caring for the dead allows me to care for her, in my heart, and also for myself and my family. For that unspoken loss and pain. For the missing.

Mortuary work has taught me so much about the transition between life and death. I have learnt that during the time between dying and being laid to rest, in that liminal space, people are still very present. I’ve learnt that by giving deep care to the dead at this time, you can feel peace descend and energy change. I’ve learnt that even after difficult and traumatic deaths you can, on occasion, still feel an immense amount of peace around the deceased. This brings me hope.

As a person who has faced my own mortality, I am deeply aware of the unexpected shock, and wild animalistic fear that the spectre of death can bring. Those like myself who think we’re comfortable with death can have the rug figuratively pulled from under us and omit guttural noises that we didn’t know were possible. I secretly love this. I love that death is the great equaliser. I love that the human ego with all its control and ridiculousness has no choice but to submit to the unknown that death brings.

I hope that when we die, we go back into nature and disperse back into the universe. One giant rolling wave of being and unbeing.

I am grateful for all that death brings. For the knowledge. For the sacredness. For the profound drive of the time we are given on this earth. The shortest of times in the big scheme of things. There and gone in the blink of an eye. But what a time.

Love Vicki

—Vicki Melson (2026)

Editor’s note: Vicki Melson is a massage therapist and aromatherapist who in recent years has extended their body care skills to incorporate wholistic mortuary care. They are a mortuary assistant, funeral assistant, and mortality doula. Vicki is a two times breast cancer human and an advocate for those going through diagnosis. They have written about their cancer experience for ACON and Queerstories, and have spoken alongside their breast surgeon on ABC radio. Instagram handle: @vickimelson_endoflifedoula

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