Meg Bernhard attended certification training to become a death doula. In looking at her own experiences with death, she poses some hard questions about what it really means to have a “good death,” ostensibly one without pain, suffering, and surrounded by loved ones, in contrast with a bad death, one in which someone dies alone, in misery, and perhaps suddenly.
Nicole and Omni explained what work we’d be learning to do. A good death doula acts like a personal assistant to the dying. She sorts out funeral, insurance, and legal logistics; she keeps a binder of contacts at hospices, medical facilities, and massage therapists; she serves as a neutral liaison to spouses or children. She helps a dying person carry out their final projects, whether completing a memoir or making a video to show their children how to use power tools. She helps them create advanced directives, legal documents that outline medical decisions, and vigil plans for the moment they die: who they’d like at their bedside, what atmosphere they’d like to create. During the death, she watches over the family to make sure everyone has what they need, because it’s easy to forget to eat, and drink water, and rest. After the death, the doula helps family close social media and bank accounts, transfer car titles, hire people to clean a vacated apartment, tying all the loose ends of the recently living. She guides them through their grief.
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