With its queen gone, Britain ponders how to discuss death

Where goes Queen Elizabeth II, there — inevitably — go each of us and all those we love.

Because she reigned and lived for so long, seemingly immutable and immortal, the death of the British monarch after 70 years on the throne and 96 years of extraordinary life was a reminder, in Britain and beyond, that mortality and the march of time are inexorable, waiting for neither man nor woman, even a royal.

That kernel of wisdom from Elizabeth's passing, the last of many she dispensed during her lifetime, is uncomfortable, even difficult, for the living. The reality of death — the queen's being, by extension, a glimpse at the eventuality of their own — is part of the reason why some Britons mourning the only monarch most have known are feeling a complex soup of emotions.

Some have called bereavement counselors for solace and said her departure has rekindled grief for others they loved and lost. And Britons acknowledge that they sometimes struggle with the emotions of loss. “We don’t necessarily do grief and bereavement that well,” says Lucy Selman, a professor of palliative and end-of-life care at Bristol University.

British bereavement experts are hoping, however, that the queen's death and its manner — at home, with family, in her beloved Balmoral Castle — might also spur a national conversation about the sometimes awkward relationship that Britons have with dying. In the process, the experts hope, it might prompt them to better prepare for the inevitable.

“If we are going to die in a way that we hope is peaceful, comfortable, and satisfying for us, we have got to do what the queen did: Recognize that it is going to happen at some point and put some plans in place for what we want and what we don’t want to happen," says Kathryn Mannix, author of “With the End in Mind: How...