Just eight months after losing her brother Ben Keough, actress Riley Keough made a touching announcement on Instagram: she had completed her training to become a death doula. I felt like writing a resounding thank you to this community, teaching and training people in conscious dying and death work. We are taught that it’s a morbid subject to talk about. Or we’re so afraid that we ca unable talk about it… then, of course, it happens to us, and we are very ill-prepared,” wrote the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and granddaughter of Elvis. “I think it’s so important to be educated on conscious dying and death the way we educate ourselves on birth and mindful birthing. We prepare rigorously for the entrance and have no preparation for our exit. So I’m so grateful for this community and to be able to contribute what I can.
Riley noted she’d undergone the Art of Death Midwifery Training Course by Sacred Crossings. This Los Angeles–based institute offers workshops and classes in conscious dying and home funerals — both part of a growing movement to approach death through a more old-fashioned and intimate lens: as a non-commercial, non-medical family and community experience. At the event of death and for a few days following, there is a window of opportunity for great healing to occur,” notes Sacred Crossings founder Rev.
On its website, Olivia Bareham (who did not respond to Yahoo Life’s request for an interview). “When a body is whisked away moments after death, this window closes, often permanently, leaving families feeling helpless, unsure, and wishing they had a little more time. It’s possible that Riley (who was not available for an interview) felt that way after her brother died by suicide in July, as it’s not unusual for those who become a death doula (also called an end-of-life doula or death midwife) to have had a profound loss — compounded by an upsetting medical or funereal experience — and to want then to support others in their understanding of death.
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“For folks who do this work, often it is in response to experiences with significant loss… who can respond by helping other people,” Dawn Walsh, a death doula and co-founder of the Lily House in Provincetown, Mass., tells Yahoo Life, noting that she was in her 20s when her mother died violently. “It is the case with me,” she says, adding that she essentially felt like “a spectator” during the following rituals. “It’s a calling, end-of-life work… It’s not something that you do casually.”
What is a death doula, exactly?
A death doula is essentially someone who assists and guides a person through their death process. “It’s somebody who is there for emotional support, spiritual support, educational support — a friend to walk the path with you and help guide you literally,” says Walsh, a green-burial advocate, home-funeral guide, and leader of community death workshops. “And a significant role, which might sound overly simplistic but is profound.
Powerful is simply being there, of bearing witness — of creating an atmosphere of calm and ease that this will be OK, and if you have any fears or worries or anxieties, I can help you unpack them and work them.” The doula is also there to help emotionally support the dying person’s loved ones by mediating family dynamics or facilitating conversations. “It’s very holistic, every mind-body-spirit,” she says.
Adds Alua Arthur, the death doula and founder of the L.A.–based Going with Grace, which offers doula training and end-of-life planning services, “A death doula is somebody who does all the non-medical care and support of the dying person and their circle of support.” Arthur ended a decade-long career as a Legal Aid lawyer after a trip to Cuba, during which she met a woman on a bus who told her she had uterine cancer. “I asked her, ‘What happens if you die from it?’ and she said, ‘Thank you for asking,’ because nobody was asking — the focus was on her surviving and beating cancer. That made me sad because death affects everyone.
Why don’t we engage with it like it is a reality? Arthur recalls that her brother became terminally ill six months later, and she sat with him, her sister, and her niece “as he drew his last breath.” From that experience, she says, “I saw the practical need for what [death doulas] looked like.” Now, through Going with Grace, she works with three groups: the healthy, who want to create comprehensive end-of-life plans; the survivors of those who die, who need help caring for their loved one’s body and wrapping up affairs.
People who are approaching death themselves. “I help them create their deathbed, lend emotional support, help them wrap up their affairs — everything from the room’s lighting to prayers, aromatherapy, music, whatever their desires are.” Through her training programs, Arthur says she’s noted that many people have wound up there after experiencing personal loss, like Riley, “trying to turn pain into purpose.”
