I often say I was doing this work long before I knew its name.
When my grandmother was dying in 2010, I stepped into the role of companion, advocate, and witness without thinking twice.
It felt natural to hold vigil at her bedside, to speak openly about her wishes, to weave memory and love into those final days.
Only later did I learn that there was a word for this work: death doula.
I carried that experience with me quietly, even as I walked other paths. I spent two decades in veterinary medicine, where I learned not only the science of care but the tenderness of sitting with grief — in exam rooms, barns, and pastures. I trained at Purdue University’s Veterinary Technology and Practice Management Institute, and I came to understand how much trust it takes to guide someone through the end of a beloved animal’s life.
When my own husband died in 2020, the work called to me again with deeper urgency. I realized that tending the dying and their companions — with presence, planning, and ritual — was not only something I could do, but something I was meant to do.
Since then, I have trained formally with the Doulagivers Institute, the Green Burial Council, and the National Home Funeral Alliance. I continue to learn every day from families, colleagues, and the dying themselves.
Being a death doula is not about fixing or saving. It is about bearing witness, creating space for choice, and offering comfort at the threshold between life and death. It is work made of listening, planning, sitting, and sometimes simply breathing alongside another.
This is the story of how I came to the work. It is also a promise: that the writing you find here will grow from the same soil — a mixture of memory, training, grief, and deep respect for the sacredness of endings.
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