As a culture, we have distanced ourselves from death. When I grew up in the 60s and 70s, people for the most part died in hospitals, out of sight from children and extended family. The dead body would then go directly to a funeral home to be embalmed and the death ritual took place there a few days later. Children were often excluded from the funeral, thinking it was too hard for them to see Grandma in a casket. It wasn’t unusual for families to not talk about the dead relative because it was perceived as being too upsetting. The act of dying went into the closet and people were expected to maintain a stiff upper lip.

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That’s how I grew up. Plenty of people died, but I have no memories of what happened because I was excluded from the death ritual. There’s an entire generation of people who are death illiterate because of this cultural mindset. In the mid 70s, the first hospices humbly began as non-profits and in the 80s, the AIDS epidemic, where thousands of young men died, was in full swing. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s work with death and dying introduced a lexicon to discuss death and the grief people experience in the wake of loss. Little by little, the tide has been shifting toward more conscious engagement with death.

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Enter Covid 19.  From March 2020 to 2022, the US experienced over one million Covid deaths. 1,000,000 deaths, lockdowns, closures – you know, you where there. Not only did a million people die from Covid, but many of them died alone in a hospital without the loving support of their people. Bless the healthcare workers who did their best to be present for the dying and connect them via video to their family, but the healthcare system was overrun and stressed to the max. It was a harrowing time.  

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In the midst of the pandemic in 2021, I received, along with thousands of others, a calling to become a death doula. Mine came in the form of a dream about my deceased grandmother, Nana (read about Jen’s dream here).  It is not a coincidence that a mass death event spurred the emergence of death doulas – it sparked a burgeoning and innovative death care industry looking to reclaim death and take it out of the closet. I am part of that effort which is often referred to as the death positivity movement.

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Caitlyn Dougherty from The Order of the Good Death describes death positivity as, “people who believe that it is not morbid or taboo to speak openly about death. They see honest conversations about death & dying as the cornerstone of a healthy society.” By talking openly about death:

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• We make it easier on the people who will care for us by letting them know what we want, so they aren't forced to guess.

• We mitigate the fear and anxiety by exploring the mystery of the unknown and finding a larger perspective.

• We move from avoidance and denial to being real and getting the most out of, as poet Mary Oliver says, “this one precious life.”​

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At Death Doula Cincinnati, we open the door and welcome death to move out of the hidden confines of the closet to our conscious awareness. We do not invite death to visit sooner than whatever the mysterious forces dictate, but once death arrives in our periphery, we invite it in, befriend it and learn what it has to teach us.

 

Since I received the call in 2021, I have established a death doula practice making my services available locally and online. My work includes:

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• Guiding families to create a sacred and loving dying experience for the dying person and for everyone who is present.

• Leading clients in guided practices to meet death, help mitigate fear, and put together a death plan including legacy projects to say good-bye to loved ones.

• Working with clients to complete end-of-life planning documents.

• Facilitating the creation of memory keepsake boxes to be opened and shared with loved ones 6 months after death.

• Collaborating with local death doulas, grief specialists, green burial and others to create a dynamic death care community in and around Cincinnati.

• Providing education to raise death awareness for everyone at at any stage of living and/or dying.