Death & Dying are Normal

my death doula training is nearly over!

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I am a week away from finishing my death doula training through Going with Grace! It feels like I just started it. I can’t believe it’s almost over. I have learned so much and still have plenty more to learn.

I wanted to do this training for a few years. My friend Alex died when we were 33 from stage 4 colon cancer. He complained of symptoms early on, but was ignored due to his age (“You’re too young to have colon cancer!”) and his mental illnesses (anxiety and OCD). He died a year after he was finally taken seriously enough to get testing done.

Another friend of mine, Xeph, who was a trans woman of color, died by suicide a few years ago, and her parents immediately deadnamed and misgendered her in all of the obits.

There is so much transphobia, ableism, racism—all the isms—that do not end in death, unfortunately. We can’t abolish this overnight, but we can do the bare minimum like honor someone’s wishes for what happens to their body when they die.

The foundation of a Death Doula’s work is advocacy. We are non-medical support people to those who are dying or those who are thinking about their end of life planning. We work with three main categories of people: 1) those who don’t know when they are dying; 2) those who have knowledge of when they will die; and 3) those who have lost a loved one.

The training was 12 modules and weekly Zoom meetings. The module titles were:

1. The Role of the Death Doula

2. Conscious Dying

3. The Art of Medicine

4. Being with Dying

5. Natural Deathcare

6. The Funeral Industry and Home Funerals

7. Legacy, Ritual, and Meaning-Making

8. Advance Directives & End of Life Decisions

9. Beyond the Advance Directive

10. Wrapping Up Affairs

11. Bereavement & Burnout

12. Business Building & Self-Care

Something that has been impressed upon me over and over again is how much bureaucracy is involved with our deaths. How much is tied up for months on end, especially if we don’t have certain things completed at the time of our death. I highly, highly recommend doing the following as soon as possible:

1. Assigning a Medical Power of Attorney

   1. this is a legal document that gives someone the power to act on another’s behalf (if unspecified, this falls to the next of kin, which can be problematic for many reasons)

2. Living Will

   1. this typically lays out wishes for medical treatment that the health care agent/power of attorney should follow. In this document, you can say whether you want a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate), a DNI (Do Not Intubate), or an AND (Allow Natural Death).

3. Physician Order for Life-Saving Treatment (POLST)

   1. a document where a person can indicate whether they want to receive fluids and nutrition, whether they want to be resuscitated, and whether they want antibiotics or not and for how long.

Please note that these forms are usually state-specific, so you need to look up the one that is applicable to where you are currently residing.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about death these last few months, and it has help amplify my living. It has also wrecked me in ways I didn’t expect. I think about everyone I’ve lost and how badly I wish they would have had resources to die how they wanted to die. For their loved ones to show up how they (the dying person) would have wanted—instead of the loved ones deciding what was best.

Death and dying are the most normal of things. None of us get out of here alive. We might as well spend some time attending to thoughts of our death.

For a list of death doulas national and international, go here. For a list of National End of Life Doulas, go here.

I will be offering free services for the time being. You can check these out here.

1. 21 Attorneys General are suing to save America’s libraries - James Folta

2. The ALA Sues Over the Scuppering of the IMLS - John Maher

3. A History and Future of School Librarianship - Addison Rizer

4. From Moominvalley to Finnish islands to Florida, Tove Jansson shows us how to live - Natalie Adler

5. Billionaires aren't people - New Means

6. Anti-trans bills in Kentucky target health care for incarcerated people - Derek R. Trumbo, Sr. and Tina Vásquez

7. White House Press Sec Says Trump’s Seriously Considering Deporting US Citizens - Chris Walker

8. On Divesting from the West - How To Cure A Ghost

9. Inside a Powerful Database ICE Uses to Identify and Deport People - Jason Koebler

10. loving the new SASAMI album: