The tall, gangly woman with large glasses introduced herself as “Magdalena, your sister’s death doula.”
I was confused: death doula – what’s that?
“Are you from the home hospice place we contacted a few days ago?” I asked. “We’ve been waiting for a chaplain – that’s what we requested.”
Magdalena then told me she was both a death doula and nondenominational chaplain, explaining a death doula is someone trained in providing emotional and spiritual care and comfort for someone at end-of-life.
It was June 2007 and we were standing in the entranceway of my sister Paula’s home near San Francisco. I live in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, area and had been traveling back and forth to San Francisco long enough and often enough to know that things were quite different in San Francisco than in Milwaukee.
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. I’ve just never heard of a death doula before.”
Magdalena said, “Not everyone has. Have you heard of birth doulas?”
I shook my head no.
“A birth doula supports women during the birthing process. A death doula supports someone at the end of life,” Magdalena explained, and then added, “Actually it can be helpful for family members and the dying to think of death like a birth. Today, what if you treated your sister’s death like a birth?”
What if you treated your sister’s death like a birth? For the next hour Magdalena said prayers over Paula, held her and told her, “You will be safe on the other side.” After Magdalena left it was obvious to all gathered family members that Paula had finally come to a place of peace: her body ravaged by breast and bone cancer was more relaxed than I had seen it in years and her face glowed with a sort of inner light. The next morning Paula died. Although she hadn’t been able to speak for the better part of a week, Paula spoke short phrases several times during the night at one point even crying out in wonder, “I have a soul.” A journey of discovery, a birth, had occurred, filling me with wonder, awe - and deep sorrow.
What if you treated death like a birth? This simple but not-so-simple thought when spoken out loud changed my life forever. In 2007 I had just begun working as a stress management teacher; eventually I would go onto receive training as a spiritual counselor, grief support specialist and death doula. Magdalena’s words and the experience of watching my sister die helped me to understand all change as the death of what once was into a birth of what now is in a way my childhood religion and books on philosophy had not. Even as I was flying back home to Milwaukee the day after my sister’s death – continuously crying and consumed by the pain of loss - I realized my life-long fear of flying had died, to be replaced by a newly birthed appreciation for the patchwork quilt-like beauty of the ground below. This was just the first indication that the me that once was had died with my sister, to be replaced by a new me – someone I did not yet know, but one who has since died and been born countless times through the experiencing of new thoughts, a wide spectrum of emotions, and lived life events. Over time and by consciously cultivating awareness I have come to view death and birth as the same, as something not separate from life but a part of it - and part of a great continuum in full view but also often hidden.
Walking Through the Door of What Once Was to What Now Is
One question I always ask my clients experiencing anticipatory grief (grief due to the impending death of a loved one) is this: ”What known experience or experiences have you had that you could apply to your current challenge regarding lessons learned to help you navigate your current challenge with greater skill and ease?”
Recently I asked that question of a new client in her forties whose mother had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. My client thought about my question for several weeks and then told me this:
“I’ve never felt more loved, important or beautiful like when I was pregnant –even though the first couple of months were a barf fest most mornings. I don’t think it was the attention I got from everyone. I mean that was nice everyone wanting to talk to me and feel my belly. I think it was that everywhere I went the universe seemed to be saying the life I was carrying was sacred, something really awesome – like a symbol of new beginnings. I felt that the fact I was going to bring a life into the world was honored by everyone and I was doing something amazing, you know?”
My client’s words prompted me to ask her this:”What if you treated your mother’s death like a birth? Can you do that? What would preparation for that event look like?”
I then used my client’s own words to help her frame the idea: what could she do that would let her mother know that she was loved, important, beautiful as she prepared for a new life beyond this life? What could she do to help make her mother’s experience sacred, something awesome, an experience of new beginnings? How could she help her mother feel honored by loved ones and the universe as she is birthed from this life to somewhere beyond this world?
And was it possible that she could guide her mother - even as they both grieved – toward treating and preparing for death as a birth? Answering all of these questions is now what we are working on together.
My client is currently in the process of putting together what she calls “my Mom’s birth-death plan” in partnership with her mother and father. “It’s all very hard,” my client recently said. “But why would it be easy? I was shocked by how much giving birth to my son hurt – I mean it hurt like hell – life really isn’t like in the movies is it? Just because something isn’t easy doesn’t mean it’s not good – it just means it’s not easy. But I can learn to do this.”
Every day throughout the day we all walk through a door that leads us from what once was to what now is or will be. It might be leaving a job, a home, a marriage, a friendship. Or finishing one work project and beginning another. Or joining your life with someone else’s and having a child. Or even something as mundane as putting away your winter clothes to make way for spring. These are all birthing events of a sort; events we usually prepare for by planning, acknowledging, and often grieving and letting go of fears as we go. What if you learned to acknowledge all of these changes as the very nature of life? What if you learned to treat death as another birth?
