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The question deck.
Every question we use, on cards, in large type, with the sentence starter included. Print it, cut it up, and put it on the table at Sunday lunch. It works entirely without us — and if you want to keep what gets said, that is what AfterLyfe is for.
41 questions across six themes.
What did the house you grew up in smell like?
Try one right now
Read it out loud. That is the actual test — a question that works on paper and dies at a table is not a good question.
If nothing comes, press the second button. Every card has the first few words of the answer already written on it, and finishing someone else’s sentence is a far smaller ask than starting your own.
41 questions in the deck. Nothing here is generated — each one was written, tested aloud, and kept or cut.
Take the printable kit
The full deck laid out for printing on card, plus a one-page facilitation guide for groups and activity hours. Open it now, with no account or email required.
Every question in the deck
Grouped by theme, easiest first. The line underneath each question in italics is the sentence starter — the version you use when the open question does not land.
Where you come from
Childhood, streets, kitchens, the ordinary weather of being young.
Start here. These are the easiest ones to answer out loud.
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What did the house you grew up in smell like?
When you walked in the front door, it smelled like …
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What was your first job, and what did it teach you about people?
My first job was …
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Who else lived on your street? What were they like?
Two doors down there was …
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What is something you did as a kid that you never got caught for?
Nobody ever found out that I …
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What did Sundays look like when you were young?
Sunday mornings we always …
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What did you want to be when you grew up, and what happened to that?
For a long time I was sure I would be …
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Did your family have enough? How did you know?
I figured out where we stood when …
The people who shaped you
Parents, grandparents, the friend who changed your mind about something.
Name them. Say what they were actually like, not just who they were.
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What do you remember about your grandparents that nobody else would know?
Something people never knew about my grandmother is …
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Who believed in you before you believed in yourself?
Before I could see it in myself, …
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What was your mother or father like before they were a parent?
Before I came along, my father was the kind of person who …
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Who did you lose touch with that you still think about?
I still wonder what happened to …
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Who was hard to love, and what did loving them anyway teach you?
It was never simple with …
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Who made you laugh harder than anyone?
Nobody could make me laugh like …
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Where did your name come from?
I was named after …
Turning points
The decisions, the moves, the days that split your life into before and after.
You do not have to explain the whole thing. Just the moment it turned.
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What decision changed the direction of your life?
Everything would have gone differently if I had not …
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Tell me about a time you moved. What did you leave behind?
The day we left, the hardest thing to leave was …
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How did you meet the person you spent your life with?
The first time I saw them, …
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What did you think about in the first hour after your child was born?
Holding them for the first time, what went through my head was …
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When were you most afraid, and how did you get through it?
The most frightened I have ever been was …
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What did you build or finish that you were proud of?
It took longer than it should have, but I …
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What did you once believe strongly that you no longer believe?
I used to be certain that …
What you figured out
Lessons, mistakes, the things you understand differently now.
The useful ones are usually the ones that cost you something.
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What advice did someone give you that turned out to be right?
Someone once told me …
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What mistake taught you the most?
The thing I got most wrong was …
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What do you know about money that you wish you had known at twenty?
What nobody explains about money is …
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What did all those years of work actually teach you?
After all that time, what I learned was …
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What did you forgive, and how long did it take?
It took me years to let go of …
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What do people worry about that turns out not to matter?
People spend so much time worrying about …
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What got you through the hardest year of your life?
What kept me upright that year was …
Love and the everyday
Not the milestones. The Tuesday mornings. The way someone laughed.
Small is good here. Small is what people miss most.
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What did an ordinary evening look like, in a year when you were happy?
A normal night back then looked like …
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What was the sound of their laugh?
When something really got them, they would …
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What did you two argue about, and how did it usually end?
We could go round and round about …
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What did you cook for people you loved? How did you make it?
The one thing everyone asked me to make was …
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What small thing did they always do that you would know anywhere?
They always …
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What song puts you back somewhere specific?
Whenever I hear …
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What do you miss that you never expected to miss?
The thing I did not expect to miss was …
Messages for later
Words meant for a specific person, on a day that has not happened yet.
Say the name out loud when you start. It changes how it lands.
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What would you want to say to them on a day when everything goes wrong?
If you are having one of those days, I want you to know …
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What would you say to them the morning they get married?
On your wedding day, what I would tell you is …
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What do you want them to know the first time they become a parent?
When you are holding your own child for the first time, remember …
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What are you proud of them for, that you have never said plainly?
I have never said this out loud, but I am proud of you for …
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What would you want them to hear when they doubt themselves?
When you start to think you are not enough, remember that …
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Is there anything you would want to apologise for?
I want to say sorry for …
Why these questions
There is a literature behind this
Structured reminiscence and life review have been studied for decades, mostly in dementia care and palliative medicine. We have not run a trial of AfterLyfe and do not claim one. These are the findings the deck is built on.
Across randomised trials, reminiscence work showed small improvements in quality of life, cognition and communication, with the clearest effects when sessions were individual rather than group-based.
Woods B, O’Philbin L, Farrell EM, Spector AE, Orrell M Reminiscence therapy for dementia. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2018. PMID 29493789
Individual reminiscence delivered one-to-one was associated with improved mood and autobiographical recall relative to usual care.
O’Philbin L, Woods B, Farrell EM, Spector AE, Orrell M Reminiscence therapy for dementia: an abridged Cochrane systematic review of the evidence from randomized controlled trials. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, 2018. PMID 30092689
Life story work helped staff and relatives see the person rather than the diagnosis, and improved communication between residents, families and teams.
McKeown J, Clarke A, Ingleton C, Repper J The use of life story work with people with dementia to enhance person-centred care. International Journal of Older People Nursing, 2010. PMID 20925716
Patients who produced a generativity document reported greater sense of dignity, purpose and meaning, and said it had helped their families.
Chochinov HM, Kristjanson LJ, Breitbart W, McClement S, et al. Effect of dignity therapy on distress and end-of-life experience in terminally ill patients: a randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Oncology, 2011. PMID 21741309
The cards start the story. Something has to keep it.
A question asked at a table is gone by the time the plates are cleared. AfterLyfe is where the answer goes.