In ACCESS Stories this month, Deborah Valentine shares insights and experiences around navigating death while living abroad…
Suddenly a friend dies, a colleague who is a central part of your working environment. Now many of us are learning at a different speed in a different register. Grief has a way of stripping the tourist layer from everything. What you encounter during those first days and weeks is the country at its most unguarded, and yourself at your most vulnerable.
Before you move abroad, no one tells you about the bureaucracy of dying. Death in a foreign country — or the death of someone at home while you live abroad — generates a huge stack of paperwork that ignores the fact that you’re in a state of grief. However, within that state we had a wonderful sense of surprise that even in bureaucracy and rules, there is also care and respect.
Read the full story here:
https://access-nl.org/features/what-death-teaches-about-living-abroad/
ACCESS is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit organisation that has supported the international community in the Netherlands since 1986. English-speaking volunteers provide free, independent information and guidance on living, working and settling in the Netherlands, via a helpdesk, email support and partnerships across the country.
Published in partnership with ACCESS. Image: Courtesy of ACCESS