Death Doulas Used to Be Rare. The COVID-19 Pandemic Changed That - TIME

(I apologize if this is not the appropriate place for this touching - for me - story)

On a cold October morning in Lander, Wyo., Liz Lightner makes a few mental notes as she sits by a stranger’s bedside. The man is 79, has lung cancer and is in a deep-sleep coma. He’s wearing a blue scuba-diving shirt that’s worn out and looks as if it’s been loved, washed and rewashed for many years. Besides the company of his cat, the man is alone and moments from dying. Using only words, Lightner, 49, carries him away from a home that he can’t physically leave anymore and guides him under the sea, where she knows he used to be happy. She leans her head against his chest and tells him they’re now swimming together in the tropical ocean, where so many vibrant schools of fish surround them. She describes for him the striking blues and oranges of their fins, how the sun pierces through the still water and lights up the coral beneath them. She tells him he’s warm, weightless and floating.

Lightner sits beside the man for nearly seven hours. Before she leaves, she gently places his frail hand on his sleeping cat and reassures him that his beloved pet will be fine when he’s gone. Then she opens a window—a symbolic and spiritual gesture of passage to whatever comes next. The man died the next day, which is expected in Lightner’s new line of work. She’s a death doula, an end-of-life coach who helps the terminally ill be at peace with dying—and she’s among hundreds of Americans who’ve embraced the rising occupation during the pandemic.

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Besides a whole lot of compassion, not much is required to become a death doula. During a recent day’s work with a woman who had stopped treatments for breast cancer, Yost helped her jot down stories to share with her children about her childhood visits to her family in Italy. When she noticed how animated the woman had become, Yost pulled up Google maps so they could virtually walk through the same mountain village where her grandparents lived. The woman cried as the memories came flooding back.

Since doulas do not administer or prescribe medication, the industry is unregulated and does not require a license. Most prospective doulas take training courses that several organizations offer in person or online for as little as $40 up to $1,000. The lessons are as scientific as they are emotional. Depending on the courses, which can span weeks, prospective doulas typically learn how to identify end-of-life stages. They study the 10 most common terminal illnesses and their leading or unique symptoms. They learn the physiology of how the human body works, the order in which organs usually shut down. Some courses focus on how to care for a terminally ill child, while others teach doulas simply how to talk to families.

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They can help write farewell letters or stockpile memos to surviving loved ones for milestones they’ll miss, such as weddings, birthdays and graduations. They can listen to someone’s life story for hours on end or hear out their proudest moments and worst mistakes. “I hear stories that maybe they’ve never told anyone before,” Web says... The job is often misunderstood, partially because many feel it’s a morbid occupation. But death doulas disagree, saying there’s often more dignity in the work than sadness. .. In January 2021, when a dying man in frigid northern Michigan said he wanted to be back on a beach but was too sick to leave his house, Shook dipped his hand in a bowl she’d filled with sand. She lit citrus-scented candles around him and brought in a sunlamp to warm his body as the sound of ocean waves crashed out of speakers in the background. A month later, when Shook realized a dying woman who loved lilacs would not live long enough to watch them bloom again in her yard, she burned lilac candles in the woman’s room, hung large photos of the purple plants on her walls and massaged her hands and feet with lilac-scented oils.

https://time.com/6128469/death-doulas-covid-19-pandemic/