Episode 1: Friend Grief and Death Doulas
Anna: I think I had a little bit I noticed a little bit of apprehension, for me in thinking about this conversation. And I think that it relates to the uniqueness of friend grief, but sort of this worry about talking about somebody else's story, and it not being sort of your story to tell, there's that sort of anxiety there but obviously I can speak to my experience around, losing a friend and grieving, a friend, for sure.
Hannah: Yeah, I actually can really relate to what you just said about not feeling like it's your story to tell and, like, feeling a lot of anxiety and fear about that. I definitely felt the same way, and I think that because of that I had trouble differentiating talking about my side of the story, and like infringing on my friend’s side of the story. And I just stayed quiet, and like I was like, okay if I'm just invisible, then it's okay, then I'm not doing anything wrong. So, and that's like that like poisons your soul, I think, just staying so silent, at least for me. So yeah, you don't have to like, say your friend's identity or give like any details you don't want to give but if you want to share your feelings and your experience, you know, you can, absolutely.
Anna: Yeah, absolutely.
Hannah: Was there anything, looking back that you wish you had access to or that you think would have been helpful for you to like navigate that really horrible experience?
Anna: Yeah, I think we had a small conversation about this, I lost a friend in college, and I actually felt that the institution that I was at did a really fantastic job of providing me and my friends with a lot of support that was really needed in that time. First of all, they gathered all of us that they knew, or close friends with this person, and told us that he had passed before they announced it to anyone else in the school, which I thought was really meaningful. I mean it was like a Tuesday night at 10pm and they called us to the spiritual center of the school and to, to let us know and I think they even gave us like tea and coffee and they you know they gave us food and they were telling us that they were there for us, which I can imagine that a situation at a larger school where we would have found out the way that everybody else found out in an email the next day, you know, I just had not heard from our friend.
So that was incredibly meaningful. And they also not only allowed us, but gave us support and resources to make a memorial for him at the school spiritual center. And, you know, it was like we were a little event planning committee - like they had, they set up meetings for us to jump gather together and talk about what was important for us to, in designing this memorial and really gave us all of the tools that we needed and all the space that we needed to make something that we thought was authentic representation of our collective grieving of our friend, you know, to the point where one of our friends read a poem, and you know, another person put up artwork that they had made, and we had a little tree that - I don't know where this idea came from, but I then use it again at my dad's funeral. We had a little tree where there was ribbons and you could write little notes to our friend and tie them on to the tree and then that stayed in the spiritual center for the rest of the year, so we can always go and visit this like tree that have had, everybody's notes and memories.
So honestly, when you ask that, what comes to mind is actually the resources that we did have, at the time to help us through that, I think, ritual is really important. And, you know, I know for myself and many of my friends, it wasn't very reasonable for us to be able to go to his funeral in, you know the state that he was from which was not where we were in school.
And so, in order to give us this opportunity to create something for ourselves that was representative of, you know the person that we knew in college which potentially would have been very different than, you know the funeral that was put on for him in his hometown by his family, like it allowed us to have a little bit more control over our own narrative of who he was, which I think is really powerful at that time, and emphasize the importance of grieving in a collective way and creating ritual and marking a period of time as something important having had happened, which I think facilitated, like a lot of healing and a lot of support and conversation around campus, which I can imagine, very easily, not having had at a different kind of university.
Hannah: Thank you for sharing that. I, yeah it's like something gets trapped if you're not able to have that release I feel like, because yeah ceremony and ritual, you know, may not be for everyone, but at least from what I've experienced it's incredibly important. And without it, it's just, it just like, it's almost like it didn't happen and then, I don't know, it's, it's like the trauma kind of like stays in the body, and it just takes a lot longer for it to make its way through.
Anna: I mean ritual like marks our movement from one time to another time right, like holidays mark our time from, you know, this time of year moving into the next time of year, like it signifies time moving, it signifies a big change, like, I think I think a lot about the people who lost focus during COVID and still, you know, just sort of have stayed existing in this place that feels like nothing has changed but everything has changed for them. I mean, obviously there's the dynamics of religion being tied to different people's ideas of what, you know, is an appropriate or meaningful thing to do when someone has passed and ours was nondenominational but I don't think that ritual has to be tied to religion and I think it is imperative to, to, like, signify and display publicly like something major has changed in all of our lives, and we were in one place and now we're entering into a different place - we're entering into a time of grieving.
Hannah: That's a really beautiful way to put it.
Anna: I think about my brother had a theory about grief and, you know what it takes to process grief and then like move on from it. And his idea was that once you're able to integrate that event as a part of the story of your life, then you're able to move forward and he was, he said that he thought, no trauma or not just trauma but unresolved trauma, things that keep us stuck in certain places, are situations where we're unable to integrate an event with our story or our idea of what our life is.
And I think, specifically with friends that is harder because of what we talked about like whose story is it, it feels sometimes inappropriate to do to, to think about things in that way. And it also sometimes is hard to come away with a clear story, like who was I to this person, they were someone to me but was that truly who they were because their family maybe see some different other people see them different, they see this situation different. I think it can cause more reason to be stuck, like more of a reason - you have more of an inability to integrate that story because it's the pieces are, don't come together as easily, you know, and that's not to say - people have complicated relationships with family members but, yeah we have really more clear channels to understand how to grieve family members and how to integrate that into our life story than we do, friends, I think.
Hannah: I have felt that truth inside of me but I haven't been able to like articulate it so I'm just like, oh man, yes I totally agree. And it just makes me think of how like - So my friend passed away five years ago. I would say it wasn't until a year ago that I was really able to even begin to do what you said, integrate it into my life story. And one of the things I really struggled with for years was, I was like: what were we to each other? And I felt like I needed a label. And it's like, why I don't even know why I needed a label, but I was like, Where are we best friends, where we, you know, was she my best friend but I wasn't her best friend because we never actually officially labeled it? And like, just what did best friend mean to her? Is best friend to her one person, or is it like a category, because to me it's a category, and then I was like oh my gosh, what if to her the person and I wasn't her person but I was still like a close friend, but maybe she saw me more as a childhood friend from the past and not so much currently, and then maybe I saw her more currently than she did me, and I would just it like I was just like, obsessing like it was just this, like merry go round of like, thoughts of me just trying to make sense of it like I just needed it to make sense. Because if it didn't make sense like, you can't like move forward.
Anna: Absolutely I feel that. You know, the, something that I feel like I have definitely seen from people grieving friends before is this fixation on wanting to know for sure, like what you meant to that person, which I think is really interesting.
Clearly, it feels like an important thing for us to feel, to know how that person who was gone, felt about us, in order to understand how we should grieve.
Hannah: I heard this quote somewhere that grieving is having love that has nowhere to go, or it feels like it has nowhere to go, and Love feels most full when it's being reciprocated, or when you're able to have a back and forth with someone that you love. And when they pass away, it's really only one way. And so, it's like, in a way you feel the need to like be reassured that they did love you, they did have love for you in order to feel that you're not like all alone in your love for them.
Anna: I think also if we think about it in the context again of having control over a story that fits into our life, you know, your, your concentration on the definition of what type of friends you guys were together, maybe it feels a little bit, In that situation, like if you can just define all of that as he said like put it in a box, then you'll have the story, you know, you'll have the clear story that you can then put into your life, when, when you're unsure of what the relationship was, that story's unfinished it's unclear, you don't have control over what you understand, as happened has having happened, you know?
Mmhmm.
Anna: I think it helped for me when my friend passed that I had this, like, sort of, pretty clear cut friend group and, and there was no question that this was something that affected all of us and we kind of had an understanding, of, obviously we all had our own relationship with him, but like, we all had a baseline understanding of our relationships and how they formed and, you know, how strong they were and the conditions under which they happened. But you know I also look back on it and I'm like, this was like a college, friendship, and I really only knew him for less than two years.
And for half of it, not half of it but I knew in freshman year and then fall semester sophomore year he was in rehab. He wasn't even in school, and then he came back to school so you know we talked about him mostly, talked to me a little bit during that time, but I look back on it and I think, wow, like, you know, how much did I know this person?
I think more profoundly for me this struggle after this friend passed because he struggled with addiction.
The thing that I really had to work through was that I felt like I had already lost him. And I felt like we had a pretty rocky relationship at the end of his life because we were involved in him, battling this addiction, and there was a lot of fighting and also, a lot of him going on benders and there were situations a lot of situations near the end of his life that I felt like I wasn't even talking to him or that, you know, so there was already like a few months where I had felt like I lost him as a friend, and then I actually did lose him. Our relationship changed obviously like a lot through that time period. And so, while I had this, you know, community around me that was experiencing the same thing and that helped define who I felt like I was to him and he was to me. What I really struggled with was the ways that our relationship had changed and my feelings towards them had changed in the last, you know, month or so of his life.
That was really hard.
Hannah: That is really hard.
Anna: Yeah, and I know that people, I know people experienced that sort of thing, both when they have someone that they've lost to addiction or suicide, but also young people that they miss to dementia are two sort of prolonged health issues, you end up having a pretty complicated – it complicates your relationship with that person, it changes. You know, if they have memory issues, many people feel like they've lost that person before they're actually gone.
And, yeah, that was a hard thing for me, and it was the hardest thing for me to process. In the months after he died. I Had a lot of dreams about it. Did you have, do you have grief dreams.
Hannah: Oh wow, I did, yeah. Do you want to share any of yours, you don't have to.
Anna: Yeah, I don't remember a lot of them, now like specifically, but I remember many of them were about me trying to save him in some way, that he was like, sick, and I needed to get to a place where he was or, I did also have a dream where I had, he had died, and I had been the one who had killed him. And I was hiding it from friends.
Hannah: Oh gosh.
Anna: That was probably the most intense one.
Hannah: Wow, yeah. I, I can absolutely relate to having super intense dreams. Definitely more in the beginning, more so than now, but a few that I remember were, there, she wouldn't like know who I was or, like I would run into her at the summer camp. In my dream, I'd be like, Oh my god, like you're alive! And just be so relieved. And then I would like be getting ready to hug her and she would just be like, who are you, like, get away from me and just my heart would just like break into a million pieces or…
Anna: Ooh. That’s really really intense.
Hannah: Yeah, just a lot mostly stuff like that because there's another one where she was like, walking through her funeral. And I was like, oh you're alive? And it was like, she had faked her death. And I was so mad at her for doing that, like why would you do that like we were all so devastated. And then she was like, again like kind of trying to get rid of me like, Get away from me and like kind of ran off.
And then there was one other one where, So I played the trumpet, and we met at a music camp. And there was a dream where taps was playing, like a trumpet was playing taps, and it was the most beautiful taps I'd ever heard. I mean like, I was like, oh my god like I've never heard a taps like that, so beautiful. And then I woke up and kind of at the realization that my mind played that tabs, because it was in my dream. So like in a weird way I was able to play taps for her, because I don't play trumpet anymore. So in real life I can't play taps for her. But in my dream I was able to.
Anna: Do you feel like you ever had a dream…You know I relate a lot to those dreams where you see somebody and you think, you know you're not here, you died! Or, I think both with my friend and when my dad died, I would have dreams where they were sort of sick or they were like zombies or, you know, some not really very real versions of themselves and in my dream I could think very clearly like “this isn’t you,” you know, you've died you're not here. Have you ever had any dreams where you didn't feel that way, where you were, like, looking at your friend who you've lost or you're with your friend who you've lost and you thought, you're really here.
Hannah: I think I usually feel the second one, where I'm just like, oh my god, you were alive, it was I knew it was all a misunderstanding. Just because I want that to be true so badly, of course.
And the only situation where I can play that out is in my dreams.
But what about you, did, do you experience the…which one?
Anna: I just had, well definitely with my friend had a lot of stress dreams I mean, I think there were many months after that death and, you know, to the point of this conversation I think there are a lot of complicated things to process with losing a friend and not as many outlets, especially, it being so sudden and it being very traumatic after many months of him dealing with this, these issues. And I mostly had stressed rooms where I would see him and I think like you're not here and he was sick, I would have to go run and find him somewhere.
But after my dad died I had had a lot of stress streams, and then I had a lot of just weird dreams where he would show up places and I would be like, this is not you. And then I had one dream where a few months after he died, where he - A lot of my dreams are really specific, and we're in places that I recognize and we're doing something very specific, and in this dream we were just sitting in like a white room. We're just like in like space I mean I wouldn't even call it room we were like in whiteness, and he was just sitting next to me, and he showed me his forearm, and my forearm is where I have a tattoo that I got for him. And he showed me his forearm if you had a tattoo on it. So I showed him my forearm and it was a matching tattoo. And in my mind I was kind of like he's showing me that he, like saw that I got this tattoo. And then I started crying and like hugging him because I was like you have you're gonna leave again and I don't want you to leave. And he just looked at me and he said, I don't want to see you like this.
And that was the dream, and afterwards like that was the end of this period of my grief where I was really like, you know that time period where you're just like, panic cries, It feels like it's just moving through your body like, something needs to release and you can't do anything about it, it just hits you out of nowhere. This was like really the end of that time period for me and I felt really different afterwards.
Hannah: Wow. That's so, that’s so moving.
Anna: I call it like my turning point my turning point dream, and I really feel like it felt super different all of a sudden, like I definitely felt like he was there.
Hannah: Wow. That's so special thank you for sharing that. That made me cry.
Anna: The funny thing is my dad hated tattoos, so I do feel like he would be okay with the, he’d be touched that I got a tattoo for him, but now I have more tattoos and I can just see him going, but we're done right? Like this is enough [laughs]
Hannah: Awww. Aw, and he got a matching one. Oh, my heart.
Anna: It's funny, I feel much more comfortable talking about grieving my dad because I don't feel like I'm stepping on anyone's toes. You know, it's, yeah, it was like my grief, it feels like something that I own. I'm the only one who's able to talk about it, I feel like I have the right to talk about it, but it's funny that I don't necessarily feel that way about my friend.
Hannah: I feel the same way and I'm trying to figure out what that is because it does make sense that you know we want to be sensitive, of their family. That makes sense. But also, like, I don't know, I just, I wish we could find a happy medium because it's just like, we also love that person, you know, and…yeah, it's hard, it's, it's hard to know what you can say and I really really struggled about that, and I don't remember if I told you actually, but I'm writing a book. Did I tell you that?
Anna: I think you did. Yeah,
Hannah: Okay, yeah I'm writing a memoir, and like I was just like can I write this stuff? Like, am I, you know, is this my story to tell, even though of course it's my perspective but still, and I still like figuring those feelings out but. But then I was like okay, I'm not publishing it yet, I can write it, because even the act of writing it is healing. And it's like I’ll worry later about what to take out, you know like, but first I need to like get it out –
Anna: No, I think that’s a good choice.
Hannah: Yeah because I wasn't even letting myself, put it on the page for myself. As if like, it was immediately being like broadcast to the world which, like, I was like, Oh yeah, no one's reading it yet. [laughs].
Anna: Yeah, I'm clearly also trying to understand, you know, those boundaries and what we're putting up for ourselves. I mean that when I think about it. I know that you said that you didn’t really have, That you didn’t feel like you had a group of people around you at the time to process these feelings. I feel very lucky that I did, but when I think about it…And maybe it's just my perspective, but it does feel like it was a very, it was when we do talk about it, it's done in a very private and quiet way. And I do feel like that is in some way our attempt to acknowledge that like, yes, we experienced a loss. It's nothing close to the loss of his family, you know, the people, he grew up with, to have lost this person and not even, you know, they were far away they were in college, they weren't even home. I feel like there is a way in which we talk about our grief that is very small, and quiet.
Hannah: Yes!
Anna: Because it feels more appropriate, I don’t know.
Hannah: Yeah.
Anna: I'd be really curious, as you continue to talk to people like if this is something that keeps coming up.
Hannah: That, I'm so glad you brought that up because I have experienced that as well.
We should also be able to express the depth of our grief, because it doesn't, grief doesn't cancel out grief, you know it's not a competition, it's not like if I grieve, that it's taking anything away from other people. I don't think, I think maybe some people feel that way, but.
Anna: At times I have been the person who feels like a little protective of the story or of my grief as being one thing, and feeling as if somebody else's presentation of that threatens my story. Maybe? My story or my grief, and it's a terribly yucky feeling like everybody has the right to feel what they feel, everyone has the right to grieve in whatever way, you know, they need to, and everyone have their own relationship to people and…but that has naturally come up for me a couple of times.
Hannah: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I think it is good to hear that other perspective and it totally makes sense like, When you described it, I was able to like put my feet in those shoes, and it's like yeah I think I'd probably feel the same way so I guess that just means like our fear is not unfounded.
Anna: Yes. We don’t want to hurt anybody else.
Hannah: Yeah, yeah, and it's like, but I guess, my hope is that there's some way to be able to fully express ourselves and not infringe on their grief. Yeah, I don't know what that is. But…
Anna: We’re figure it out! We're here figuring it out.
Hannah: Yeah we're figuring it out. [laughs]
But yeah, I think, because I was so terrified of that I, like I said, stayed very very silent.
For the most part I think I mean, I would like post on Facebook, sometimes. But, I guess, just like in…I felt like I was being silent.
Anna: Social media optics of losing someone is also a very interesting road to go down. Like intricacies of people making posts or posting on somebody to wall and the like display of grief in a social media sphere is super interesting. I haven't thought about that for a little while.
Hannah: Yeah, and honestly that was the only way I was really able to publicly grieve.
Because, first of all, I found out on Facebook. It was her birthday. I posted happy birthday on her wall. And then I scrolled down to see the other Happy Birthday posts but I just saw rest in peace.
Anna: Oh my gosh, that is such a terribly shocking way to find out that you've lost somebody, and I'm so sorry.
Hannah: Yeah, thank you, it was incredibly shocking. So it's almost in a weird way, the whole thing happened on Facebook, because I found out on Facebook, I was able to like talk to her mom through Facebook. I would post on her Facebook wall, like more frequently in the beginning and then now like on her birthday every year. Because I don't where else am I gonna, when I think about it I don't even know where else I would publicly grieve. I honestly don't know. That's kind of the only place I've found.
Anna: Yeah, I mean I think people, there are some people who can be sort of judgmental, ways that people display, grief, on social media, but you're so right. It is like the, it is the space that we function in almost all day, every day, and I think grieving publicly is such an important aspect of grief because you're carrying pain around with you and you need people to know that in some to some degree like you need some acknowledgement of that. And social media also is a place that we know how to connect with other people, they use the place that we go to find other people who we may not know what website interests or same you know, friends, and so why, you know, why would we look upon Facebook as like a strange place to, to work through grief also, I mean it's where we do everything else.
Hannah: Yeah. That's so true.
And I think in a way I mean, it's, I'm glad I have that, but on its own, it's not enough. And it's like, that kind of was mostly all I had, other than just like going to therapy and like talking to my therapist. So I would like tell the ethos on Facebook and I would tell my therapist, and then I would like not really bring it up to my family. Because, How does that even come up naturally, you know, it's like, I would have to bring it up, basically, because they're doing what I, what makes sense and what I also do is to like, you know, you don't want to bring it up if they don't want to talk about it so I'm going to wait for them to bring it up kind of thing. And then when am I going to bring it up, I'm not going to be like, Can y'all like listen to me tell you how I'm really sad? I mean I could do that but like I didn't really know how. So it just very rarely, very rarely came up, to the point where it was almost like kind of like it didn't happen.
With which sucks because then it's like, I'm vastly different, like you were saying earlier like this huge thing has happened I'm not the same person. And yet my surroundings are the same.
Anna: Ugh, Yeah. That's the worst.
Hannah: It's terrible!
Anna: In the Jewish culture there is a tradition of wearing a piece of cloth that has been ripped on your clothing, like during the mourning period and my understanding is that the amount of like that time is different based on your relationship to the person, but it's like a public signal to other people that you're walking around with a part of you that is broken or lost, because you've lost somebody. And I just really loved that idea because it does sometimes feel like, especially in those first few weeks or months after you've lost someone really important, you're like, I'm just walking around and people are looking at me as if I'm a normal person but I'm like carrying this huge hole inside of me now. And like the fact that other people don't know that that is with me constantly, is a barrier to connection, you know?
Hannah: Absolutely. I love that I wish that we, I wish we did something like that, like, just in mainstream society, but our society - when I say, our society, I think I'm just thinking of Western society in general - is like very like terrified of death is kind of like you know take two sick days and you know cry and then come back to work, or - I'm totally generalizing here of course but like, just
Anna: No, I totally agree.
Hannah: It's just yeah, very, like, you know, pick yourself up by the bootstraps pretty quickly and get back to it and just like try to act as normal as possible.
Anna: Yeah, people are really uncomfortable with grief, because we're uncomfortable with death. And, you know, we don't know how to be around people who are sad because it makes us sad and makes us feel closer to death, or like, people around us could be closer to death.
And it's sucks. [laughs]. To put it plainly I think it sucks.
Hannah: It does suck.
I don't know if you've heard about an author named Megan divine. And she wrote this book called, it's okay that you're not okay.
Anna: Oh yeah, I have that book.
I haven't read it, actually. I read one chapter and this is very representative of, like, the way that I have been grieving, but there's one chapter on grief and the body and like chronic pain that I read that I thought was really really interesting and it was sort of about how common it is for people to develop like mysterious chronic pain or illnesses, after losing somebody.
Hannah: she has this group called refuge in grief I believe. And she talks has talked about how so many people want to fix you. Like you're sad and they want to make you feel better, but like that makes you feel so much worse. Because what the, what we really need when you're grieving or this can apply to, like, a lot of negative emotions, is you need just someone to acknowledge that you're sad, and like just be there.
Anna: You know I did the death doula training and I swear like half of it was, you know, training on how to talk to people and listen and not provide answers, and it was the hardest thing to learn, and I feel like I'm really sensitive to that now but I still do it all the time. It is such a deeply ingrained desire to like provide somebody with answers to fix their problem. It's really hard to just listen and just say, Wow that's powerful. That sounds really difficult. I'm sorry that you're feeling sad. I'm here for you. Yeah, doesn't even feel full, you know, but it is.
Hannah: you did death doula training. Do you want to tell me a little bit about what that is I think it's fascinating.
Anna: Yes, I did a 30 hour, I believe or 33-hour training with INELDA, the International end of life doula association to become a certified, end of life or death doula. People call it a death midwife, because the death doula movement comes from the birthing doula movement, which was this movement in I believe the 60s or 70s. That was a backlash against this like over medicalization of the birthing process, and um, like, a deep prioritization of the mother’s well-being and control over the situation.
Somebody, years later, took the same model and applied it to death and dying situations, and so the idea that a death doula is somebody who is sort of a spiritual support, like truly they're there to work with a dying person and their family to understand what that person believes a good death for themselves and for their family would mean, and help them execute that as much as they can. Um, working both in, what legacy means for them and what kind of legacy they would like to leave behind. Um, and then, planning the things that they believe that they can have control over and for some people who have a long-term diagnosis that means that you might be able to plan the like the active dying and vigil process. To be able to say, I want people to interact with me in this way, I want people to talk to me about the fact that I'm dying. I don't want people to talk to me about the fact that I'm dying. I want to be at home and I want my room to smell like this, and I want there to be music all the time, I want people to come in and come out and be boisterous and loud, or I want people to only come in, you know, with quiet, you know, respectful energy of what is going on. Which, in turn, sort of creates or bolsters a legacy for somebody, in your family can see that you have control over this process for yourself. And sometimes even helping them plan a funeral for themselves or what they would like after they've died, how they would like people to interact with their body. And then a little bit of grief work with the family, the way that they describe it as the doulas’ role in grief work is helping the family integrate their experience like into their lives and work through any parts of the experience that felt like it didn't go the way that they wanted it to.
It was a very interesting training and experience. A lot of it was having us roleplay as dying people, and imagine what we would want, and actually act as somebody who would like actually not somebody, act as ourselves, who have been given like a three month or six-month diagnosis. Being asked those questions and being asked about, you know, what we would want and what we want our life to represent, and it really, it was really powerful in thinking about like what things actually matter in your life. You know, to be asked as like a 25 year old, you know, if you are given a life threatening diagnosis and all that you had three months to live, like, what are the things that are really important to you to have in these next three months and how would you want that to go.
That's an incredibly powerful conversation to have. And you know, 25 year olds do get life threatening diagnoses, we just don't ever think about it.
Hannah: Wow, that's incredibly powerful and I did not know that death doulas existed until I met you, and I just think it's it's so wonderful and I hope that people become more aware of it.
Anna: I think that like, as a culture, we are going to be, I think we're in the process of rethinking the way that we approach death and dying and aging, and I think COVID definitely bolstered that, and…Our parents’ generation, the boomer generation so to speak, is about to be sort of watching their parents, and I think a lot of them are gonna say like, that's not what I want, I don't want that for myself. You know, I want to have control over a lot more, and I want to talk I want to talk about and think about and process my life.
Hannah: Absolutely. Wow, so where would if someone was interested in finding a death doula. How would they go about that? Do you have a recommendation?
Anna: Yes, there is a registry, on INELDA’s website: I N E L D A, International end of life doula Association. You can go to their website and look for the doula registry and everyone who has taken the course is listed there, so I am listed there. Um, you can filter by state, and location. So there's a certain category of doula on there that has been doing this for a specific amount of time and a lot of those people will have websites you can go to the websites and see people have different specialties, you know. I know that there's a lot of doulas right now just working on grief work and working with people who lost folks during the pandemic and didn't have a chance to work with a doula or, you know have space to properly grieve and so there are doulas who just work in grief work, and then there are those who, you know, just work on legacy projects you can contact someone to just do sort of a few processing sessions and create something with someone who has been given a diagnosis, even if you know, their diagnosis is like, you know you maybe have a year or two left.
There are people who can just sit down with your family and talk about what that person would like their legacy to be and what executing that could look like. So there's a wide variety of ways that death doulas work with people. And there's a lot of people registered on this website. I'm sure that in most major cities, you'll find someone on that registry.
Hannah: That's great, thank you so much for sharing that I'm sure there's someone who, who would be interested in that resource.
Anna: I think that this is a really rich subject area. I think that there's a lot of nuances to grieving a friend, and I'm so glad that you are creating, helping to actively create a space where people can talk about that.