Where Grief & Gratitude Meet

Two years into my work as an end-of-life doula, I find myself pausing to take stock. My heart is full — brimming with gratitude for the stories I’ve been entrusted to witness.

Stories of hope.

Faces lit with surprise and wonder.

Moments of raw empathy for those navigating grief and loneliness.

Above all, I feel an immense privilege in being welcomed into the intimate spaces of families standing at the threshold of profound loss. To be invited into those moments — when life is changing in real time — is a sacred trust.

Last week, I traveled to South Carolina and spoke with a group of women between the ages of 60 and 89. Most belonged to a book club that had just finished The Collected Regrets of Clover, and for many of them, this was their first introduction to the idea of an end-of-life doula. My friend had invited me to share what I do, what inspired me to completely shift my career, and some of the extraordinary stories that shape this work.

But as we talked, something became clear: by the time we reach our sixties and beyond, most of us have already served as doulas in one way or another. Humanity does not offer an eternal option. Each of us has walked beside someone we love as they moved toward the light, and every journey is as unique and personal as a fingerprint.

One woman — I’ll call her Anne — shared a story that stilled the room. She lost her husband on September 11th. That morning, he called from the 104th floor of the second tower to tell her that a plane had struck the first. He urged her to turn on the news and explained that he was evacuating out of caution. They said, I love you, and he hung up. Moments later, Anne watched in horror as the second plane struck the tower her husband had just called from. In an instant, she knew he was gone — the father of her three young children taken from them as she watched.

The scale of that loss is almost impossible to comprehend. Yet Anne spoke with a grace that was both steady and luminous. Her children, now adults, continue to process their grief as they build families of their own. Anne raised them without her husband, sustained by a village of support — family, friends, and strangers whose kindness helped carry her forward. Again and again in my work, I hear this refrain: alongside grief, there is gratitude. Anne describes her healing as hard-earned, shaped not only by love, but by the compassion of people who stepped in when she needed them most — doulas in the truest sense of the word.

The truth is, none of us needs certification to do the work of loving and supporting one another through loss. We are all participants in the same human story. We show up for each other in ways both ordinary and extraordinary, and in doing so, we soften the sharpest edges of grief.

My role as a doula may give me a closer relationship with death and dying, but it doesn’t make me separate from others — only more willing to lean into conversations many of us avoid. I believe death deserves the same openness and reverence we give to birth. It is a milestone, a rite of passage. And while its mystery can be unsettling, it is also what binds us together.

We fear death in part because we cannot see beyond it. Yet we entered this world through another unknown passage. We carry no conscious memory of our time in utero, no lingering trauma from that journey. Perhaps death is another threshold — one we approach with fear because we love deeply and grieve what we stand to lose.

If my work has taught me anything in these two years, it is this: when we speak openly about death, we make more room for life. We become gentler with one another. More present. More grateful. And in that shared vulnerability, we discover that none of us walks this path alone.