Have you maybe wondered why I do the work of an end-of-life doula? It’s certainly not to create captivating dinner conversation or to remind people that “you too are going to die.” In fact, death is hardly the dominant theme if you ask me how my week went. This week I lost three people (two clients and one member of my spiritual community). And the theme echoing through the ‘dead of night’ like a megaphone is love.
I watched and witnessed as my two clients progressed in their final months towards their sacred passage, one with a fixed date of departure (aka medically assisted dying), the other without a clue. They both crossed over one day apart of each other. My first client whom I’ll call Esther, for confidentiality purposes, had a countdown and my job was to help her leave a legacy to her loved ones. She wrote love letters (I was the plume) for the grandchildren, her children, her doctors. She sang songs that issued like from the belly of a tiny bird while I recorded them. We sat sometimes for hours, recollecting the good and the bad of her childhood, the early onset of her illness, her trials, her joys, her dedication to her two children. I listened, we laughed and cried, and I gave form to her words that became a legacy book. But most of all, as she sifted through the detritus of her ‘difficult’ journey, she discovered the gemstones and discarded the rest. In fact, she herself had become the diamond, more sure of who she was, the lessons life gave her, the meaning she derived from being here, and the message of unconditional love to her family that rose above all the rest. One last time she dressed up party-style and her loved ones joined together with her to dance, sing, eat, and rejoice. She was the gift and the gift was a sparkling diamond.
You see, my encounters with death, when I am privileged to accompany a client, a friend or a loved one during an end-of-life phase, are like the fresh snow that catches you off guard when you’re trying to get to Spring. You’re tired of the soiled roads, the mush and the muck. And all at once your whole word is recast in a soft white covering. Nature makes its own rules. I am not a romanticist. I am not sentimental. I’ve just seen it again and again. Love seeks greater heights always and holds our gaze upwards. This is not a downward slide into the mud.
My other client, whom I’ll call Thomas, was bedridden and receiving palliative care. He had a clear wish to be at home for his final moment and the medical team was fully on board with this. My conversations with him rarely concerned his bodily condition. He had from the time of his diagnosis conceded to the path his physical self would take. I was in the room with his soul being. He was not religious, he had not made for himself a curtain of beliefs which he would have to deconstruct before he gave up the body. He wanted some clarity or maybe some confirmation of what he felt to be the journey from this world to the invisible one. His heart already knew he was the gift. His entire being was set in love. He felt immensely loved, cared for, joyous, and present, without rejecting anything. He bathed in gratitude and here I was, that privileged witness to the one who meets his crossing with a “blessed assurance,” a trust in that which brought him to this place. And as I would come to learn, he transitioned with such ease that it was nothing less than an act of sheer beauty. I consider my fortunes multiplied by the short but intimate, sacred space I enjoyed in Thomas’ life.
As I will explain after this next example, none of these experiences are meant to downplay the sadness and the grief present when someone we know and love dies. My week progressed to a third death of someone belonging to my spiritual community. While I did not know her so well (let’s call her Diane), I was closely connected to many people who were her dear friends. As a single mother, she would be leaving behind her physically and mentally compromised son (let’s call him Paul). This was a relationship made in Heaven, a miraculous bond that made everyone around them light up. Friends and loved ones were not only grieving over their own loss but Paul’s. I discerned it was not merely concern for his needs but the irreplaceable love that cleaved them together. My witness to this death was one layer removed and more about the community of people who surrounded Diane, the intensity of support, dedication and prayer that shepherded her in her final months, days, hours, even minutes. I myself felt transported by this chorus of loving beings who showed up day after day online, crescendo-ing to her passage and then on to her eulogies, like a giant tidal wave. The power of ritual. And in some stroke of fate and unbeknownst to me, it was I leading the chanting during her passage. Diane’s last demonstration of selfless service was the surrendering of the individual self, as she neared death without exertion. It is what doulas call “conscious dying.”
And the tears rolled in, the flood gates opened at her time of reckoning. This is what grieving asks of us, to honor our emotions till the depths of our being. And yet, this was not the remarkable part. Have you ever thought it is possible that the love you feel is so powerful you can’t bear it? Have you ever experienced a love so great it melts you, submerges you? It is said that the depth of your grief is the measure of your love, which would explain why grief is so painful. But to me, there’s more to it. What I witnessed this week, a week that could be dubbed the “week of sorrows,” revealed to me a complete and all-consuming love we tap into in rare moments of our lives, if we are lucky enough. This strain of love erases all boundaries so that, whether we are “in life” or have crossed that final boundary to the other side, we are that love. Nothing else matters. And for something of such magnificence, I would readily cry an ocean of tears.