My journey to becoming an End of Life Doula
I sit with the dying. I am an End of Life Doula. When I meet new people and they ask me what I do, those two sentences are usually show-stoppers. End of Life Doula? Sit with the dying?
It’s interesting to watch the expressions of people as they process the phrase “end of life doula.” If they aren’t really listening, they simply say, “oh, that’s nice.” But the ones who are actively listening step closer and look me directly in the eyes and ask me to repeat and explain.
And So it Began
Four years ago my husband’s father passed away after being in and out of hospitals, nursing homes and hospices. For over a year we worked with the medical establishments to manage his care and get him back to what he once was before his open-heart surgery. There were good days and bad days and suddenly a longer string of bad days.
The doctors moved him to a different nursing home where his wife and children doted on him every day for another year. Then the bad days became bad weeks until there were no good days left. As a family we knew something was happening, that he was getting closer to the end of his life. The hospital staff, while providing excellent care to him, couldn’t help us. We were exhausted, confused, worried and nervous. And then suddenly he was gone. We were left with an unexplained, painful void. His wife of 65 years wasn’t by his side when he passed. She was devastated. We were left empty.
The Gap
This death impacted me greatly. I spent the next year meditating and processing what I had experienced. I saw a gap between the medical establishment and us (the family and patient). It was a gap of silence. A gap of awkward, painful, unsaid truths. It was a gap that needed and demanded love, compassion, truth and presence for the family.
It was in that space…in that gap that I started searching for a way to help others.
Death and Birth
In my meditations I came to understand that death, like birth, is a life transition. I had a birth doula for my son’s birth. The birth doula, my husband and I worked on a birth plan, met several times to practice techniques and teach my husband what he could do to help. She guided me through a painful natural childbirth and stood by my side emotionally and physically. My husband was able to relax and just be with me because she created the emotional space for him.
I thought to myself, why can’t it be like that for the dying and their families? Someone that could hold the space for the family and work with them on planning a “good death?” How beautiful could it be to create a space of calm serenity, absent of fear and anxiety? That was my calling.
Rumi writes, “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”
I never set out to sit with the dying, but through my life experiences I was silently drawn into it. I hope, through my training as an End of Life doula, I can provide the space, peace and compassion for the dying and their families.
I have faith I will not be lead astray.