Peter Jenkin has worked as a palliative care nurse for almost 30 years and it's taught him a lot about death, but also about life.
It's often said that there is nothing like the prospect of dying to help a person realise what is important in their lives, and also perhaps reflect on opportunities missed.
"You do get a lot of 'I wish' statements," Jenkin, who works in Canberra aged care homes and community settings, said.
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Jenkin said while he sometimes heard his patients lament that they had worked too much, the most common regrets were often connected to people, or loved ones.
"It's generally about people," Jenkin said.
"It's, 'I wish I'd told my wife I loved them more than I did', or their daughter, or husband.
"Or, 'I wish I had taken that leap and asked that person out when I was younger, because life would have been different.'"
Patients also sometimes reflected on how their fears had held them back, Jenkin said.
"They will say, 'I wish I hadn't been so hung up or so self-conscious, that I had danced more or went and sang in that choir, because I didn't think I'd be good enough.'"
Having had the "pleasure and privilege" of caring for countless patients in their final weeks, Jenkin is one of two palliative care nurses who have shared the wisdom they have gleaned from the job with 9news.com.au as part of National Palliative Care Week, which begins on May 19.
Jenkin said the one indisputable thing that working in palliative care had done for him was make him very aware of life's impermanence.
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"Life is finite, and death – it's inevitable," Jenkin said.
"It just makes you recognise your own mortality and I don't think you can do this sort of work unless you feel comfortable with that.
"I don't know when I'm going to die. But, the more we think about and talk about dying and death, the less scary it becomes."
As a palliative care nurse, part of Jenkin's job is to help guide close friends and relatives through the process of saying goodbye to their loved ones.
People were often hesitant to talk about dying with his patients, but it was usually helpful if they were open about it, Jenkin said.
"They don't want to upset them. But it's so important, people need to be heard. They want to be heard," Jenkin said.
"I can't remember the last time I tried to bring up a conversation with someone who was dying, who said, 'I don't want to talk to you about that.'
"We've really got to listen, actually properly listen.
"We are not good at this in general, but I think it's just about holding space with someone."
Jenkin said it was sometimes children who were the best at breaking the ice in these sorts of situations.
"I think children are fantastic, they don't have the hang-ups about death and dying that we do as we get older."
Jenkin said he once heard a six-year-old ask his grandpa, "When you're in the coffin underground and the worms are there, what do you think will happen?"
"The grandfather said, 'Sure, let's talk about it. What do you think will happen?'"
Over the years, Jenkin has seen many of what he considers to be "good" deaths.
"Humour and joy are just way more present than you would think," Jenkin said.
"I've seen families en masse in somebody's room, ordering pizza, putting on the person's favourite music that they knew they absolutely loved and sharing memories.
"I think that would be the most lovely way to pass away."
In another case, Jenkin's patient was a winemaker aged in his 70s.
His family decanted a bottle of vintage wine he had made and shared it around. They even soaked the winemaker's oral swab, used to moisten a patient's mouth, with the same wine.
"That was probably the last thing that he tasted," Jenkin said.
Kat Hooper has been a Queensland palliative care nurse for 13 years.
A Woromi woman, she specialises in working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Over the past decade palliative care nurses had navigated some huge changes, including the introduction of voluntary assisted dying laws and the use of medicinal cannabis, Hooper said.
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Recently, challenges had arisen from dealing with international painkiller medication shortages, Hooper added.
Hooper said end-of-life planning was something people often put off, but when done right could allow for a meaningful experience.
For First Nations people, this often meant connecting with Country, Hooper said.
"I've had people's water, their salt water from their lands, running through a water feature. We've had pictures of their Country on the walls," Hooper said.
"We've had photos of their family fishing with a barramundi, or their totems flowing across the room."
Working in palliative care had given her an appreciation of how precious life was, Hooper said.
"No moment is promised," she said.
Hooper said the strong connections she built with patients could often be extremely powerful and moving.
"There's been moments, that might sound crazy, where I've been having a shower and all of a sudden I'll feel a thought that my patient has passed.
"And I have this thought … of someone saying 'thank you' to me.
"Then I'll hop out of the shower and the page will come through where that person has passed."
