Approachable Afterlife Club

Approachable Afterlife Club is a project set up by myself, Carys Seeley, and Harry Harrison. Our goal with this project is to create and publish a book made up of stories and ideas around what different people think happens after we die. Our aim is to start to make talking and thinking about death a little more approachable. In creating a book, we hope that it can be read by those who would like to see how others think and feel about death, perhaps in a desire for comfort or in preparation for difficult conversations.

We want to collect these stories from as many people as possible, both adults and children from around the world. This is where you come in! Some stories might describe religious beliefs, some might not describe an afterlife at all, and some might focus on the feelings that come up when thinking about death - whatever you are happy to share. There are no wrong answers, only stories, ideas, and beliefs.

Interested? I’ve included more details about the project below, have a read-through and see if you’d like to contribute!

More information

What are we doing and why?

We are collecting stories and ideas around what people think happens after we die. Our hope is to create a great big book containing all these stories, with contributions from people all around the world. It is important to show that everyone has different ideas and everyone finds comfort in different things. We would like to make the idea of ‘death’ a more approachable topic to encourage people to think about and talk more about it. Understandably, this will be quite an uncomfortable thing to do at first, but it can also be a lot of fun. Death is a universal experience and the more comfortable we can feel discussing it, the better.

Our plan, with your help, is to consolidate a large collection of stories from children and adults from various walks of life, to create a big book that people can dip into when they’d like to. For example, you might be worrying about having conversations about death with your child and can look to this book for inspiration to see how parents and children think about death. Or you might be having a moment of existential dread, or even curiosity, and would find comfort in reading about how other people view death and what comes with it.

During my PhD, I explored how children understand death and how parents talk to their children about it. I have heard some really lovely stories (including mentions of robins, stars, and white feathers) all of which brought me some solace in my own grief – and led me to wanting to create an anthology to bring together these stories in one place to share with the rest of the world.

How can you help?

We are asking for your help to submit your own stories, ideas or descriptions of what you think happens after we die. There are no right or wrong ideas, instead we want to show that we all have different ideas and we all find comfort in different things. It might be that you don’t believe anything happens, are interested in the process of decay, believe in a heaven, a hell, a place that you’re unsure of what to name, reincarnation, etc. Whatever you feel and think about what happens after we die, we would like to hear it. These can be stories you’ve been told, ideas that you’ve had, or even thoughts that have literally just popped into your mind – whatever you would like to share.

The more detailed the stories the better – we will edit all stories for clarity so please do not worry about spelling and grammar! If English is not your first language, please feel free to write your stories in your native language if that feels most comfortable and we will have them translated to the best of our ability.

To give you an example, here is one idea (of many) that I personally had around what might happen after we die:

I’ve often felt that what might happen after we die is that we start our same lives all over again. So once we die, we begin again as our new born baby selves, live out our lives again, maybe with some differences, maybe exactly the same as we always have. We never remember that this is the life we already lived, so in my mind I think we live it in exactly the same way, and this repeats each time we die and are reborn again, and again, and again.

We would like to hear from both children and adults so if you would like to submit stories separately, or even come up with something together, both would be really lovely. We are hoping to hear from as wide an array of people as possible, from lots of different backgrounds, so please do feel free to share this website to anyone you like.

If you would like to add a drawing to accompany description, you are more than welcome! We would like to add illustrations throughout the book, and would love to include your and/or your children’s drawings as part of this.

We will also ask for your name(s), age(s), and location to include alongside your story – this will help others to understand a bit more about your experience and allow you to find yourself amongst the finished book; but this optional if you would prefer to remain anonymous.

If you would like me to email you once the book has been created, please add your email address to the form below.

Please keep in mind this process is likely to take years while we collect stories and compile them into a book.

Any questions, concerns, suggestions or comments?

Reach me at [email protected], I would love to hear from you! Or on Instagram @ApproachableAfterlifeClub.

If you would feel more comfortable mailing any drawings or stories, please get in touch via my email and I can give you more contact details.