A Doula in the Driveway
by Martha Heymann
Coronavirus has made doula work much more difficult to pursue and forces us to think creatively about working with clients. But, it isn’t impossible. As the following story from one of our recently Certified INELDA doulas makes clear, when you find new ways to work, the results can be just as meaningful as when we didn’t have to worry about masks and social distancing. And perhaps, because these efforts reconnect us to who we are in profound ways, the impact on people is even more magical.
In the early spring, when Coronavirus was surging everywhere, I was contacted by a woman I will call Lisa, the daughter-in-law of a Rabbi who had died from the disease. She was hoping that I could help the family feel like a family again. I had been referred to her by a mutual friend. The wife of the Rabbi, Robin (a pseudonym) had given Lisa (her daughter-in-law; also not her real name) permission to fill me on what had happened and how the family was grieving.
The evening after I called Lisa to introduce myself, we met in her neighborhood. As we walked through the quiet streets at breakneck speed, socially distanced, Lisa said: “Everyone in the family has experienced this death in such a scattered and guilt-ridden way.” Due to physical distancing the family couldn’t really comfort each other by hugging or wiping away each other’s tears, as they would have under normal circumstances. And of course they had not been able to be present in his last days, which was the cause of their guilt. I could feel the repressed energy propelling Lisa forward. I didn’t need to say anything in response. I just walked alongside her, listening intently.
When my meetings with the whole family began, they were conducted at dusk in Robin’s driveway, canopied by large oak trees that helped to cool the hot Texas evenings. We sat circled in our respective camp chairs at the appropriate distance, the daughter from Oregon joining us through a laptop sitting on a stool, accompanied by a long extension cord reaching into the house.
My deep belief is that ritual, even a very simple one, opens us to the sacredness of sharing a deceased person’s life and promotes focus. These six lives had a shared point of destination but were coming to the driveway, so to speak, from different routes. The ritual also served to remind me to care for, not solve, the process of grief for this multigenerational group—helping them to find their own way to unify as a family. With a small singing bowl and a short breath-awareness exercise, we opened and closed each of our three evenings together over the next five weeks.
This family proved thirsty for each other’s collection of treasured memories with the Rabbi. During our first meeting it was decided that each person would write down their memories to make sure they were documented in a way that would preserve them and pass them on to future generations.
At our second meeting the 24-year-old grandson shared: “I almost had a hard time deciding what to write. But once I did decide,” he added, “it felt like I was talking to him. It felt good. I cried. But I laughed too. I liked it. Some things I had forgotten about popped into my head while I was writing. When I was finished, it felt special, important.” These sentiments were shared by everyone in the family.
From reminiscing the family went on to discover the meaning of their patriarchs’ life. That part of the process, which continued until the conclusion of our visits, started with a question I posed to them: “What do you think mattered most at the core of this man you knew as a husband, a father, and a grandfather?” And I followed that with connected a question: “What do you want the next generation of this family to know about him?”
Robin, who had been more of an observer before I asked those questions, quietly offered: “This would have been important to him.” We all honored this thought by remaining silent for a few moments. Then Robin went on: “He was a marvelous storyteller. He would love that we are doing this…telling his stories.”
Through our continued sharing in the driveway and some private phone calls I had with Robin, the family decided to have weekly Shabbat suppers via Zoom. As the weeks went by, even after my work with them had concluded, they decided to create a collection of the Rabbi’s aphorisms and print them in pamphlet to be distributed at the community memorial service they planned for later in the summer.
They also decided to record their favorite stories from every member of the family in a shared online file. They wanted people to add to it throughout this first year following his death. At the end of the year, his two grandsons will take turns recording the memories and their grandfather’s wise sayings on the StoryCorps website, so they can be archived in the Library of Congress.
Due to the global Coronavirus pandemic we, as doulas, must face serving without the possibility of being physically at the bedside of a client. But my work with this family showed me that there is still great power in our work, even as we conduct it virtually and in physically distanced circles on a family’s front lawn or in their driveway. People still ache for support and guidance, probably even more now because of the restrictions we must live with.
As the universe spins slightly out of control, and we are all perhaps charting new paths, we are unified by our deep passion to serve as end of life doulas and by the sturdy buttress that is INELDA and all its ever-changing resources. Perhaps that’s one of the keys to getting through this time in the best way possible: not holding on to patterns of service we thought were the “right” ways, but opening to new and innovative ways to serve. We were taught in the INELDA training that we need to be vigilant and flexible so we can flow with changing circumstances. My work with this family in the driveway reinforced this teaching.