Do views on what we want before we die differ for people who are bereaved when compared to those not bereaved?

Background: As part of a Massive-Open-Online-Course about death, students completed a mortality-awareness activity based on the work of Candy Chang, where participants were asked to complete the statement: “Before I Die, I want to…”

Hypotheses/Research Questions: We aimed to determine if responses to an activity asking what individuals want before they die differed thematically for people who had experienced the death of someone close to them in the past 5-years compared to those who had not.

Sample Characteristics and Sample Size: n=738 community-based participants completed the activity, and a sub-sample of n=267 provided bereavement-status information. The sample were predominantly female, aged 40+, university-educated, and residing in Australia, and 76% were bereaved.

Design: Mixed-Methods including qualitative and descriptive analyses were used.

Results: Key themes emerging from responses to “before-I-die” included the desire to do an activity (like travel); family-related wishes (including experience family milestones); personal aspirations; happiness; live life fully; the greater good; love and peace. Responses were also able to be distinguished as being inward-facing (about the self), and outward-facing (about others). There were similar proportions of bereaved and non-bereaved participants who mentioned doing an activity, family-related, personal aspirations, happiness, love, getting prepared for death, and legacy, in their ‘before I die’ responses. However, bereaved participants were much less likely than non-bereaved participants to mention ‘experiencing family milestones’ or ‘living life fully’ in their ‘before I die’ responses. In contrast, bereaved participants more commonly mentioned ‘peace’ and ‘the greater good’ in their responses.

Scientific Contribution: Thoughts about what people want to address before they die may be affected by bereavement, perhaps altering how a person views the world and makes meaning from life. This may inform conceptualizations of eudaimonic wellbeing following the death of a loved one, and inform the way we approach and assess meaning-making following bereavement.