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Does it matter that the first evidence of a human burial rite is 100,000 years old?  By way of comparison, the wheel is only a 5,500 year old invention. This means that burying our dead in some type of ritualized manner became meaningful long before we needed wagons, carriages, or cars. Death was seen as part of life. Inevitable as the day and night. It’s right up there with controlled fire, which was invented 800,000 years ago. We innovate as we identify our needs and we have needed burial rites for a long time. Of course, stone tools, having been used by humans for 2.5 million years, were needed way back! We have a long history of honoring our dead; of making space for death and dying; of knowing it is the natural way. I love learning so many different death rituals from many cultures and traditions. They all seem to honor the spirit leaving the body in some kind of ritual of transition.  I believe we were a death embracing people before it was taken away and a taboo created around it. We are getting back the the natural way.

Why does it seem like everyone wants to be a death doula? It is no coincidence that most of us come to the work after experiencing caring for a loved one who died.  We were deeply, incredibly moved by sitting bedside. We were altered by being their witnesses. We were changed by facing death gently and compassionately. We were carried into a place of deep love. We survived the pain, the poignancy, the extraordinary experience of the hours and days and weeks of sitting quietly, wiping foreheads, cleaning bodies, talking with hospice workers, making arrangements, feeling death arrive and then leave with our dear ones. We shared with them their desire to belong, to feel deeply known.  We felt their need to know their life made a difference, their longing to be remembered.  We helped them leave this world in an ordered and peaceful way.  We feel blessed by them and we bless them. We celebrate them and we hold them in peace. Thank you Dr Byock for this list!

My hero, Parker Palmer, in a recent interview with the Greater Good Science Center said something I love. He said, "I can't think of a sadder way to die than with the realization that I never showed up in the world with who I really am and what I truly believe and care about and what I truly hope for..." He also said he defines spirituality as any way, any way, the person has to answer the perpetual human longing to be connected to something larger than one's own ego; something that can save us from the loneliness of self absorption; something that can give us a sense of meaning and purpose.  He allowed how that could be walking in nature, or organized religion, or meditation, or acts of kindness, or it could be involvement in an ultra right wing movement. We must use our own sense of discretion, our integrity, our moral compunction, to pursue our spiritual expression honestly and openly. How do you define your spirituality?

Nike was wrong. Feel the fear and do nothing. I am feeling the fear.  And noticing what it feels like. Every day since Jan 20th, I promised myself I would not give in to fear. I would not just prattle on about things. I would look for the hope and what I could effect. I would find out what great things others were doing.  That lasted about a month before I caved.  I took a pause and just observed the fear. I located where I felt it in my gut. I noticed that my stomach gets really tight and I feel a bit nauseated.  I started noticing something else about fear. It is everywhere, every day. It is our constant, albeit a behind the scenes companion.  My partner and I were talking tenderly about our fears about potential dealbreakers in our relationship. We fear love because it makes us so, so vulnerable. My daughter was afraid she wasn't going to get the job she really wanted.  We fear failure and we fear success.  I remember when my kids were growing up that gnawing fear I always had should any harm fall upon them. We fear our loved ones could be hurt and we could be unable to protect them. When my first husband and I split up, I was in deep emotional pain and it took me many months to feel hope again. I was so afraid that the pain would consume me. We fear the pain of heartbreak. I have a client who is so afraid of the pain that her illness will bring that she can hardly think of anything else, even though she desires a sense of completion about her life and her death. We fear physical pain. We fear death. That is the ultimate fear. What I know for sure is I can hold the fear. No matter the source of the fear - personal or political.  The fear co-exists with other companions including hope, courage, persistence and love. We will continue. Photo by Shubham Mittal

When you talk with someone, do you care if they listen to you? I love to have conversations where we each really hear what each other is saying and keep building on that connection and momentum. Absolutely sublime. It’s up there with the beauty of a sunrise or hugging an old growth tree. I am not so thrilled when I share something and by the person's response, I can tell they didn't hear or understand what I said.  Maybe I was unclear.  Maybe they did not find what I said was very interesting.  Maybe they went off in their head on a related tangent that was not germaine to what I said. Do you relate? Does this happen quite often in your regular conversations?  I am more often aware of that look that comes over their face when they have stopped listening and are just waiting for me to pause so they can jump in with what they want to say. A friend said to me recently that I made them uncomfortable because I listen intently to them when they talk. Another confessed that they really don't listen to everything another person says and they weren't sure why I did. It wasn't personal, they insisted, but rather a lack of discipline. Today a self-described 'good listener' interrupted me repeatedly and after I kept inquiring as to what they meant by their responses, said that they were probably hearing what I was saying as 'black and white'.  Btw, I have found black and white thinkers to not be very good listeners. Then there are the people who talk at great length, in great explicit detail about what a situation or an event, rather than offering a summary that indicates the important points.  I am not sure if they feel they are communicating something to me or just need to vent, or perhaps they don't have skills to edit what they are saying in order to effectively share something important to them. Or maybe its the new solipsism, where we have lost the art of conversation, due to modern social isolation and too much time spent on social media, and just are not practiced in dialogue.  I know when I don't really listen, I am usually attached to some thought, belief or feeling running through me. Sometimes I feel judgmental or critical. Often I am aware what a struggle it is to just be present with them.  I think if we could settle, and let ourselves quiet down and open our heart and ears, we would find listening, deep listening, to be a meditation, a way of being present, a relief from the ego, and a sacred gift.  Let's try it!  Enjoy this poem on the topic: Listening Listening is a form of worship, but you don't have to kneel on the floor with folded hands or mouth the perfect prayer. Just open the door of yourself to another, become the space they step through to show you who they are. This is holiness: two people seated together on the pew of a park bench, or the altar of a kitchen table. Even if no one says a word for a while, receive the silence until it's like a new language only the two of you can speak.  - James Crews

Six hundred billion dollars. That is the shocking value of unpaid caregiving by family members in the United States.  In 2021, the AARP estimated that unpaid caregiving was worth $600 billion. This was based on 38 million caregivers providing 36 billion hours of care.  The National Partnership for Women & Families estimates that unpaid caregiving is worth more than $1 trillion. This is based on the idea that if unpaid caregiving were paid at the same rate as paid caregiving, it would be worth more than $1 trillion.  Older women are a major source of unpaid caregiving. They provide an average of 182 hours of unpaid care per year, which is equivalent to more than five weeks of full-time work.  Of course, many people take care of their loved ones 24/7 for years. Many of them care for their loved one who dies and are then left to face the end of their lives. “Taking care of a chronically ill person in your family is often associated with stress, and caregiving has been previously linked to increased mortality rates,” says David L Roth, Ph.D., Director of the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health. We need to figure out a way to pay our caregivers. When you see how much a home aide costs or how much facility care costs, it is truly amazing to comprehend the value family caregivers provide to our nation. We need to figure out a way to give our caregivers support and respite. Being a caregiver puts one at risk of dying. We need to do better. We must. We need to thank our caregivers for their devotion and care, and for keeping the family unit going. Many caregivers bring the larger extended family together. We need to elevate the caregivers as heroes for carrying the load so valiantly, so steadfastly, so bravely. Thank you to all you wonderful family caregivers!

"You are not your grief. You are what the grief is moving through." Death and Dying Educator Frank Ostaseski said those words. On the other side of our grief are the new parts of our selves waiting to be discovered. A new self with new wisdom, gifts, and experiences to share.  There may be some really tough times. Profound pain. But people say this helped them get to a new place: 1. They named the loss they were experiencing. 2. They avoided black and white thinking and went for the gray. 3. They owned their grieving self. 4. They let themselves welcome the new. We can trust in the basic rhythm of life, death and rebirth. Life goes on. Winter is followed by Spring. After death, there is rebirth.

Everyone wants to be an end of life doula! The recent uptick in calls and emails from people who want to be death doulas or end of life educators or grief coaches says to me that people truly feeling called to do the work. Mostly because they have experienced a deep loss. Grief changes us. They are finding their way into and through and around grief.  They are still healing so they want to find a way to legitimately hang out in the end of life realm.  They have a lot to offer. I encourage them to become a hospice volunteer and sit bedside; to check out some of the end of life doula certificate programs; to immerse themselves in the many excellent books and films and podcasts on the topic. My friend and colleague, Gabby Jimenez, wrote this lovely quote about being a loving witness for someone who is dying or in grief. I hope it touches your heart as it does mine.

Thoughts on MLK Day, January 20, 2025 “My head is like a bad neighborhood, I would rather not go there." I have been meditating for 51 years and I still feel this way about my head, pithily captured so accurately by Jack Kornfield. Such a noisy mind I have!  So many awful and totally strange thoughts enter when I venture to sit quietly. Sometimes, lovely ones or clarity comes across the screen of my mind. Buddhists say this is the nature of the mind, and advise becoming curious and relaxing into the noise. Push nothing away. Welcome it all. Aspire for right word, thought and deed but let yourself be. Jewish ethics says its expected to have a less than stellar mind. It is okay to have impure, negative and bad thoughts, just don't act on it in word or action.  I would just like to sit quietly with a quiet mind today. It is an auspicious day. I am determined to stay clear and strong and not give into negative thoughts and future fears. I attended a zoom yesterday with Jon Kabat Zinn and Roshi Joan Halifax, two of my favorite spiritual teachers. Roshi read this quote in honor of Jon’s late father in law and my/our personal hero Howard Zinn:  "To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

I am doulaing. As someone with a propensity for making nouns into action verbs, I am doulaing. That means that an extremely articulate and homeless woman with a chronic disease for 33 years has asked for help to find her resources for a dignified way to leave the world of the living. That means a man dying of cancer 3,000 miles away got my number from a mutual friend and called me to say he doesn't understand why he isn't well since he sees the light everywhere and feels jubilant. That means a woman who I know from my weekly, virtual Death Cafes for five years but have never met in person, joined me for dinner last week on her first tour of the west coast. That means that I am trying to find a cheap restaurant that will allow 25 local doulas to gather and dream together of that which we are building. That means that I am trying to find a way to offer my courses again through the Elisabeth Kubler Ross Foundation, knowing some of the administrative challenges we have while feeling the pull to teach. That means coaching a 75 year-old woman who took my class "End of Life Intentions for Dummies, Pragmatists and Seekers" and realized she needed to reboot for her 'third act' in life after healing from hip replacement, the loss of her wife and of her dog.  That means that I am filled with gratitude for my healthy 87 year-old client who wants to confess all his regrets and mistakes so that he can die in peace. End of life doulas do all sorts of things in all sorts of way to provide compassionate support, witnessing, guidance and education. The texture, the flow, the meaning-making, the rhythm of it moves all around. We move into it and through it and with it. We are doulaing.

Why do so many senior citizens think age 65 +- date?  We want love and intimacy! 36% of adults aged 65 and older report being single, compared to 29% of people aged 50 to 64, and 21% of adults aged 30 to 49. Dating is a huge business for people 65 years of age and up. They might find themselves single after a long term relationship due to divorce or death. They might have finally found their someone after many years happily single. Or they just may like dating. What is the unanticipated consequence of more seniors dating?  In the United States, the number of STIs among people aged 65 and older more than doubled between 2000 and 2022.  Furthermore, the rate of infection increased 23.8% for people aged 65 and older from 2020 to 2023.  According to Science of Health, here are some reasons for the rise in STIs amongst older adults: Older people may underestimate their risk and not take precautions such as condom use and STI testing before having sex with a new partner. Lack of concern about pregnancy also likely diminishes condom use. Erectile dysfunction drugs help more older men remain sexually active. Hormone therapy helps more older women remain sexually active. A larger number of older adults live together in assisted living facilities. Older people aren’t given STI education and it’s been many decades since they received any sexual health education. Older adults can have weakened immune systems. So, to all you 65+ out there, follow the late Dr Ruth's wonderful advice (she died in 2024 at 96 and had a glorious impact!), but be safe and smart! Get regular testing and protect yourself and others. #seniorcitizens   #healthyintimacy   #thirdactcoaching

Did you know that this holiday season there are more than 11 million widows and 3 million widowers?  Most are over 65 years of age.  Many are determining when is the right time to start dating again after the loss of their long time partners. They might worry about other people's judgments, especially their own kids. They always can count on their grief to accompany them through the rest of their days. The loss they have experienced, often after years of caretaking, maintains its size. But their own lives grow bigger around that loss.  Are they not entitled to their slice of happiness? Can we encourage them to live fully again? Can we be happy for new love?  As an end of life doula, I listen to many people's stories of losing their beloved partners, and their bravery in finding their way to a new life. They stay close to their deceased loved one. They relish so many past moments of exquisite tenderness. They allow themselves the sorrow. And they continue on. One step at a time. They go through the grief and the grief goes through them. This holiday season, here is to loving again after profound loss. Here is to life growing around the grief!