Becoming a Memory. Shadowing End-of-Life Doulas

My sister and I were present at my Father’s passing, which took place at our family home. My Dad was very unsettled for almost two days prior, not being able to sleep, not even closing his eyes due to anxiety his body felt. In the final moments, with huge efforts, he was trying to catch his last breaths. When my sister started repeating with care “calmly”, I joined her immediately. Our father became reassured right away - trusting us, recognizing something familiar in this very unfamiliar experience of transition into unknown.

To process the shock of witnessing a loved person’s passing took me time. My emotional struggle around this experience has brought my attention to humans who decide to professionally accompany terminally ill patients, wanting to assist them emotionally, spiritually, physically and practically to undergo the preparations to face their end of Life. Incorporating my own perspective as a starting point, I connected closely with fourteen end-of-life Doulas (coming from the States, Mexico, Switzerland and Ireland) to process our relationship with mortality. Through shadowing those end-of-life Doulas I relived my father’s last days and passing, trying to understand the place of death in the scope of things, as well as processing the labor of death for a collapsing body and grief for everyone who is involved or witnessing.

Named so after a woman from an ancient Greek times, who helped another woman through childbirth and delivery, provided care for the mother, child and the family to usher in life – a Doula - we use now the same term to a facilitator of this emotionally and physically reversed process: at the end of life as well. End-of-life Doulas bring someone comfort up to their last stage, and guide them to be less afraid, removing the emotional distance that is felt by a lot of patients, as well as their feeling of abandonment.

What strikes me while spending time with Doulas is how easily they celebrate life, even if it’s right after closing terminally ill patient’s door. I would observe them look up into the sky, reflecting on its beauty and constant fluctuation. They would cherish such a moment of feeling and being alive, at the same time knowing that their life, just as any life, could end at any second.

Bringing images that psychologically and physically enter taboos, stigmas and traumas in our current culture, I process experiences that most of us will have to face at some point : a loss of a loved one, and an anxiety of a self to enter the ultimate unknown.

How do certified end-of-life Doulas look at the process of dying? What can one take from it?