Death Work
Death and end-of-life care, for your human & animal relatives, that honors your identities, beliefs, and values, while meeting you where you are.
Death doula offerings cover a wide spectrum of experiences in order to ensure uniquely tailored support as you prepare for death, while navigating the process of dying, or after someone in your life has died. Regardless of why you, or someone in your life, may be seeking out support around death, I view my role as one of support and flexibility. Some of the offerings, applicable to both our human and animal relatives, that fall under the umbrella of death work include (but are not limited to):
End-of-Life Planning
This work could include the creation of advance directives, exploration of views on death and dying, general education and information, living wills, funeral and body disposition methods, possession cataloging, dependent care, or identification of important information following your death.
Care for the Dying
This could include facilitation of conversations with care teams and family, end-of-life specific plans, funeral planning and body disposition planning, memorial or ritual composition, companionship and vigil keeping, caregiver respite, resourcing and needed errands, or obituary and eulogy writing.
After Death Support
This work could include the creation and action of memorials and rituals, body care and disposition, grief support or the transition to therapeutic grief work, closing accounts, and locating important information. These are applicable to both our human and animal relatives.
Payment & Finances
Death work as a death doula is not as clearly structured in expectations as therapeutic services; as a result, the pay structure is a bit different. I believe in equity, affordability, and access, and this belief extends to end-of-life care, where the systems that intentionally marginalize many humans are ever-present and cruel.
I operate on a sliding scale payment structure as a death doula, with a tiered range of fees depending on service and agreed upon price and time expectation. I welcome and want conversations around what is feasible for your financial situation, and I value communication and transparency. The amount that you will pay for services is a flat rate, collaboratively determined, after we discuss a potential care plan that is tailored to your needs and situation. This discussion occurs during a consultation session, which is billed at an hourly rate, between ~ $50-170/hr.
I strive to work with anyone who reaches out for death support, as long as it is within my capacity for energy and time. Please send me an email if you have any questions and we can have a conversation to decide on a plan moving forward. Again, I believe that everyone should have access to care before, during, and after their death, or the death of someone they love - regardless of availability of finances. I do my best to honor that in practice.
My Death Doula Story
Death work was something that I fell into, both as a practitioner and human being. In the therapeutic space, I have frequently worked with humans as they navigate grief, death, and dying; however, the work of a therapist doesn’t extend past the bounds of the therapy room. I’ve had the honor of witnessing so many stories, in the therapeutic context, of individuals navigating death & dying without adequate support and without full understanding of the systems at play. It became very clear, very quickly, that my work with death & dying needed to extend beyond my work as a therapeutic practitioner. Death doula work allows for that expansion.
Throughout my own journey, I have not been a stranger to death. Most recently and devastatingly, my grandmother died in late 2022, following a long health decline. This particular loss had ripple effects throughout my family system, as my grandmother was the matriarch of my family. Throughout the last few years of her life, I spent much of my time engaging in (what I would come to learn through my training was) death doula work with her, attempting to convey her legacy in the way she intended, and trying to create the end-of-life that best fit her wishes. There were so many times throughout her death, during her funeral, and the wrapping up of her affairs where the support of a death doula would have been indescribably useful. My hope is that I can offer to others the care, planning, and support that my Grandmother both received and deserved.
Animal relative loss is also an area of significant experience for me. I have lost several of my own dogs throughout my life, I have sat vigil with others as their animals have died at home and via veterinary-assistance, and I have experience with navigating end-of-life decisions around animal relative care, both in and out of a therapeutic context.
My german shepherd, Finley, died in January of 2023 after living 10 years with us, and it was a soul-shattering loss for my family. We frequently described him as “going full-heart” into everything he did - that is an energy I am attempting to bring into my work as a death doula, supporting those moving through whatever stage of death or dying they may be at.
Sometimes support through death can look like resources on an individual level. If you are interested in learning more about death work in general, death doulas, specific literature, current research, or how to get involved in death cafes or groups within your area, please reach out. I will do my best to point you in the right direction (or to someone who can do so.)
If you’re looking for a place to begin, I recommend any of these amazing books!
