10/23/2026
As the saying goes, death and taxes are the only two things in life we can’t escape. And yet, death remains a difficult topic for many to grasp or face. Its inevitability, mystery, and potential finality haunt many minds and create existential angst. Death doula Diane Button recently appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show to help make sense of it.
In a clip making the rounds on social media, Barrymore first vulnerably shares her absolute fear of death. She asks Button, “How do you assuage people’s fears? How do you work with them to stop monkey gripping? I can’t believe how terrified of death I’ve been my whole life. And I picture it as an endless, infinite black room. As if that’s exciting to get to.”
Button listens intently. “Right,” she answers. “So the idea is to let go of that. So you can live fully ‘here.’ Because we’re going to die. We’re all going to have to face that at some point. So it’s not really about taking away the fear so that you have no fear of death. It’s understandable because it’s an unknown.”
Button gives an example through the lens of one of her clients. “I was talking to a client the other day, and we kind of agreed that the fear of death is really the biggest elephant in the room. Of all the elephants in all the rooms. Because it’s for all of us. So the idea is…can you embrace the elephant? Can you befriend death a little bit? Can you talk about your fears and your worries so you can sort of ‘shrink’ it and put it in a corner?”
The idea, she clarifies, is not to ignore it, but not to obsess over it either. “You know it’s there, but you’re not living with the presence of it all the time.”
