I was eleven when I realized that dying wasn't something we talked about openly. That year, grief crashed into my life three times — my grandfather, my first friend at a new school, and our family dog. Each loss hurt deeply, but what struck me most was the silence that followed.
For years, that silence persisted. Death remained a topic spoken about in hushed tones, if at all. Then came the pandemic, and death became inescapable. As a career coach, I watched people wrestle with losses that went beyond their employment. They were grieving their past selves, imagined futures, and sometimes actual loved ones. While my official role wasn't grief counseling, I couldn't ignore how grief wove through every conversation.
This weekend, sitting in a death doula training with the Deathwives in Austin, I finally found myself in a room where 'death' wasn't a taboo word. The contrast was electric – here were people speaking openly about something I'd been trying to put into words since childhood.
Through the Deathwives, founders Lauren Carroll and Erin Merelli are transforming how we approach death and dying. They've cultivated a community where both experienced death workers and the death-curious gather to learn, share wisdom, and explore the sacred nature of end-of-life care.
Death work, at its core, is community work.
Like birth doulas who support new life entering the world, death doulas walk alongside people and their families during the end of their lives. We're non-medical professionals who provide emotional, physical, and spiritual support throughout the dying process.
Some families need help navigating end-of-life options or capturing stories and memories. Others seek support during the final hours, when death doulas sit vigil, tend to the environment, and guide families through unfamiliar territory. And after death, we can help honor lives through meaningful funeral ceremonies, creating celebrations that speak to the fullness of the person we've lost.
Being in a room where people spoke about death felt revolutionary. Tears flowed freely as we shared stories of loss and love. Erin had just one rule - don't apologize for the tears. In that permission to feel deeply, this space brought back memories of my own losses.
My grandfather, John, taken by pancreatic cancer when I was still learning how to be in the world. I watched as someone so strong slowly faded away.
Weeks later came a different kind of goodbye. I remember the day my brother and I carried our family dog, Bo, outside on a blanket so he could pass peacefully. It was our first real encounter with making decisions about death, that terrible beautiful responsibility of choosing how to say goodbye.
Then there's Rachel. She was one of my first friends when I switched from private to public school in 6th grade - you know those friendships that just click? That was Rachel. She had this infectious smile and was one of the kindest people I'd ever met. Her cancer returned months before we were supposed to graduate to junior high.
I remember Kirby, my second dog, who was more than just a pet - he was my constant through some of the hardest chapters of my early adult life. He saw me through family struggles and relationship endings, always there with me when I needed to cry.
There's Mr. Sewell, my high school band director, who passed away during my college years. He saw leadership potential in me before I saw it in myself, gently pushing me toward opportunities I thought were beyond my reach. When my best friend and I dreamed up the wild idea of arranging and directing a musical for our senior project, he became our advisor. His belief in young people's potential to create still lives in my relationship with music today.
And then there's Mrs. Rilla Ann Byrd - my grandmother. It's strange to miss someone you've never met, but I do. I know her through stories and old photos. I feel her in my endless DIY hair experiments (she was a hairstylist), and in this calling toward end-of-life care.
The isolation of grief is profound. When Rachel died, it felt like she disappeared into the shuffle of changing schools, as if hundreds of preteens collectively agreed to pretend nothing had happened. Years later, when Kirby died, I found myself hiding my grief, as if loving a dog somehow made the loss less valid.
But what if we had better tools for talking about death? What if grief didn't mean being alone?
As Erin Merelli powerfully explores in her TEDx Talk 'Love them, even in death,' this work is about shifting our relationship with mortality. That's why I'm becoming a death doula.
This work is not just about supporting people in their final moments – it's about creating spaces where we can speak about death above a whisper. Where we can transform our relationship with mortality from one of isolation to connection. As I move forward in my career, I'm drawn to creating community spaces where people can connect more deeply.
I want to help people craft their legacies, tell their stories, and find their version of peace as they approach the end of their life. I want to create meaningful funeral ceremonies and celebrations of life that bring people together. In gathering around death, we learn to live more fully connected.
Each of us carries stories of loss, love, and remembrance. Stories that sometimes feel too heavy to hold alone.
How might your relationship with death and grief shift if you had permission to explore it openly? What stories are you carrying that deserve to be heard?
Let's build communities where no one grieves alone.
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