Death by Any Other Name 

By Camille Mc Millan Rambharat

As a death doula and grief and bereavement support, with four years of volunteer work in hospice, I often reflect on how uncomfortable our society has become with the word ‘death’. Perhaps we associate it with darkness, fear, pain, or the unknown. Whatever the reason, many of us struggle to say it aloud, even though death is one of the few experiences every human being will eventually face.

During one of my personal development sessions, we spoke openly about the use, or rather, the avoidance, of the word ‘death’. Over time, the language surrounding death has softened and almost disappeared behind euphemisms. Instead of saying someone ‘died’, we now say they ‘passed away’, ‘transitioned’, ‘crossed over’, or are ‘no longer with us’.

At first, the conversation made sense to me. Perhaps these phrases feel gentler. Perhaps they soften grief or make painful conversations easier to navigate. But afterward, I found myself wondering why we have become so uncomfortable with the word itself. Who decided that death had become too harsh or too heavy to say aloud?

Then, almost like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, my thoughts deepened.

I imagined meeting Jesus and saying, ‘Thank You for transitioning for me’, instead of ‘Thank You for dying for me’. Somewhere in that moment, I almost laughed, because it sounded less like the Crucifixion and more like Jesus had simply relocated offices.

Then I started looking at Scripture.

Psalm 23 says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

Now imagine it saying, ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of passing away’.

Suddenly, it sounds less like Scripture and more like someone trying not to upset the children at the dinner table.

Or consider Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.”

Now replace it with, ‘For the wages of sin is transition.’

It changes everything.

The word ‘death’ carries weight, truth, urgency, and finality. ‘Transition’ sounds more like changing careers or catching a connecting flight at the airport.

Even in everyday conversations, we avoid the word. We say, ‘We lost him’, or ‘She’s no longer with us’. Half the time, someone quietly asks, ‘Lost where exactly?’ There is often an awkward pause when someone says, ‘She’s no longer with us’, and for a brief second, your mind wonders whether she moved to Calgary before realising they mean she died.

Perhaps our discomfort with the word ‘death’ reflects something deeper within modern society. We sanitise ageing, grief, suffering, and mortality because naming them forces us to confront our own fragility and the reality that life on earth is temporary.

Yet Christianity has never hidden from death.

Our faith is rooted in it. Christ died on the cross, not symbolically, not metaphorically, not ‘crossed over’. He died. Through that death came Resurrection, redemption, salvation, and eternal life.

Even Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus. Scripture does not avoid the word because Scripture does not avoid the human condition.

As Catholics, we are not called to fear death, but to understand it in light of eternity. Words matter because words shape how we think, how we grieve, and how we understand faith itself.

Perhaps gentle language has its place when comforting the grieving. Compassion matters deeply. But there is also something sacred about calling death what it is, not to be harsh, but to be honest.

Because without death, the power of the Resurrection loses some of its meaning.

It’s okay to say that someone died, so we can speak the truth with compassion, grieve with honesty, and hold fast to the hope of resurrection.