Want to Die Well? Death Doulas Provide Aid at The End-of-Life
What is a death doula? A gentle heart, honouring the sacredness of death and the beauty of life, walking with you through the tender process of saying goodbye, offering peace and comfort along the way.
OUR END-OF-LIFE DESERVES TO BE DIGNIFIED, WITH AS MUCH CHOICE AS POSSIBLE AND WITH THOSE AROUND US SUPPORTED.
You’re allowed to laugh while grieving, joy doesn’t betray your loss…it honours your life. - Sheila Burke, End-of-Life Doula CLE
Many people assume that being around those transitioning to death and their loved ones who are already grieving their pending loss is the perfect recipe for depression and despair. Instead, sitting at the bedside of someone who is transitioning to death inspires me to make the most of each moment in my own life and makes me more aware of my own mortality. Becoming a death doula candidate with Home Hospice Association has taught me what to expect at the end of life and given me the opportunity to help others do the same.
Working with the dying is like being a midwife for this great rite of passage of death. Just as a midwife helps a being take its first breath, a death doula helps a being take their last breath. - Ram Dass
My mom passed away in July of 2020 in her bedroom in our home and no matter how much experience I had with death as a Personal Support Worker (PSW), I was not prepared when my mom was passing. As a PSW, I knew what to expect, I knew about all the changes that would take place with her body, I knew the sounds that would start happening…but my mind was elsewhere, and everything seemed so new, so foreign to me. I was so focused on staying by my mom’s side as my mom had expressed her fear of passing away alone and I promised her that would not happen. Then there was my dad and my son; they weren’t familiar with death, so I was trying to explain the process to both of them, so that when changes started to happen, they would not be afraid.I also needed to support and comfort them and ease their minds, that even though this is all new to them and in some ways scary… mom/wife/gramma is okay, she is not in any pain, she is not struggling. With all that, my primary focus was on my mom and making her journey respectable, loving, and honouring every wish she had.
My mom did have a Care Partners nurse who was on call to help us out on my mom’s final days or if we had questions, but with that being said she lived over an hour away so it wasn’t as though she could just stop by when needed, so that was difficult to deal with because like I said before I’ve been subject to many deaths as a PSW, but there was always a nurse right there when needed. Experience or not, death is tough, emotions run wild and when things start to progress and you have others to think about but yet still focus on the individual passing, it can be very overwhelming and emotional.
In being a death doula candidate, I now know the importance of taking that step and inquiring about having one as part of your care team. A death doula would have allowed my family and me to focus on my mom, our family, and it would have given us the ability to grieve together rather than grieving apart. A death doula would have given us the opportunity to let down our guard and shed tears together rather than putting up this wall of strength and unemotional disconnect from our own feelings we were going through. A death doula would have given us the chance to have no worries, to focus on my mom, focus on what was happening rather than worrying about the next steps when my mom passes.
When my mom took her final breath, she was surrounded by my dad, my son, and me. We all held hands, we all told her it was okay to be with her mother, and we told her how much we loved her. Tears were flowing, my dad was shaking and gasping for air as it was hitting the surface that the woman he married 50 years ago would no longer lay next to him, my son was looking at me with tears he had never shed as he is Autistic, so he was struggling with losing his gramma and not knowing truly why he had water coming from his eyes. Breath in, breath out, and my mom had passed away.
My dad, my son, and I sat on my mom’s bed and held her hand. My dad pushed her hair from her forehead, and we told my mom one last time how much we loved her and that we would be okay.
I have no regrets with my mom’s passing as I made every want, every need, every wish of hers a priority and a reality, and together with my dad and my son, we made it all happen. There were points of the process where one of us was taken away to pick up medications, do grocery shopping, cook meals, make phone calls, update family members, and close friends, and this is all part of the process where having a death doula would have been most beneficial to my family. Even after the fact, a death doula would have been beneficial because it would have allowed us to grieve together and not apart, but there was so much that needed to be done when she passed.
Death is sad, but it should also be a time when families don’t have to worry about anything except their family member who passed and the family that is surrounded.
In conclusion, I’d like to say to anyone who took the time to read my article to…open your minds, open your thought process, and take the time to see how a Death Doula could truly benefit your loved one's passing and your family of caregivers.
MAKE DEATH MORE POSITIVE.
WE CAN DO BETTER, AND WE SHOULD DO BETTER.
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Kirsten Pegahmagabow is a PSW at Wasauksing First Nation Nursing Station and a Death Doula. Her scope of services go from light housekeeping to caring for individuals who require extra care and also to individuals who are taking their end-of-life journeys.
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