Life, Death, Grief and Celebrant Training

2022 started as a huge emotional challenge for me.  My childhood best friend, my longest known friend, who had been battling with cancer since being diagnosed in December 2019, was admitted into hospice in January of 2022.  We all thought, including her, that it was just for respite, but the next day she was informed that she had two weeks left to live.  She managed to hold on for a few weeks more and passed over on Valentine’s Day.  Five days after her funeral, I had to put my beloved 12 year old clinic dog, Ted, to sleep.  My world was shaken.  Two deaths of two beings I cared for and it was only March.

For anyone who has experienced the prospect of losing a friend through death, the feelings are slightly different to that of a family member, yet just as intense and valid.  The whole scenario seemed unfair, it shouldn’t have gotten to this point, we were supposed to end up in the same nursing home, there were still lots of things we needed to talk about, we should have hung out more. Why weren’t her health complaints investigated sooner? Why did she have to get diagnosed just as the start of Covid? So many questions and scenarios went through my mind.  There’s never a good time to get cancer, but the timing with lockdowns was rotten luck for her in regards to treatment and health service support.

My friend wasn’t one to follow the same natural health path as me and so I respected her choices of treatment and never offered my advice from the knowledge I have gained witnessing others managing their cancers with integrative medicine approaches.  Was it right to say nothing? I don’t know. It felt right to say nothing and I knew her well enough that she wouldn’t have been comfortable with anything that veered off the conventional pharmaceutical medicine approach anyway.  She never asked, so I never offered.

Death Doula and loved ones…

What I could do for her, however, was draw on my training as a Death Doula to prepare and support her, as best as I could, for her journey ahead.

For those unfamiliar with this role, a Death Doula is a person who assists those who are dying and supports their loved ones around them.  We hold space for death, grief and loss so that they, their loved ones and their environment can adjust and metabolise the process. We don’t rush the grieving process, we don’t try to heal the grieving process, we simply hold space to allow all to grieve.  Some Doula journeys carry through to the funeral, of which I have had the honour of assisting in two shamanic funeral rites.  Some end simply with the passing, each case is different.  In the UK it is a training that is growing in popularity and there are also many good quality online resources from the USA.

I had never performed my role as a Death Doula with someone who was close to me before. Previously, it had been through clients who had reached out to me for the service.  It’s often said you cannot be a griever and a Doula at the same time, but this felt important for me to support her through.  I wanted to give her a good death.

I knew the conversations that needed to be had and to support her with her worries and fears about what would happen once she was gone.  However, my friend was a very popular lady.  Finding precious alone time with someone who is loved by many and nearing the end of their life is not the easiest of tasks!  Yet somehow her Mum knew that we needed that alone time and she navigated the others, to make it possible for the two of us to have days where it was just my friend and I.

In those precious days we talked about our life, life in general, death, the supernatural, fears and joys.  There were days of tears but the majority was filled with lots of laughter and good memories.

We spoke about passing over and how the actual point of death is a time when the body, mind and soul knows exactly what to do.  A natural, effortless process.  It is the polar opposite to birth, which is usually filled with force, hormones, noise, stress, joy – a very physical time shared by two people – the mother and child.  Death is the individual’s ultimate ‘me’ time, relaxed and peaceful.

I listened to her biggest fears, the ones I hear often from those facing this journey – would everyone she loved, her husband, her parents, her brothers, in-laws, nieces and nephews, would they all be OK? What would happen to them?  

“They all love you so much, they will miss you terribly, there will be tears, they will experience deep sadness that you are not here with them anymore, life will never be the same for them, but eventually, they will be OK”, was my reply.  

Then, as so often happens, the feelings of guilt, knowing her passing would result in sadness and tears in others, that emotion that she had been holding down deep inside for so long since diagnosis, surfaced.  

This is such a normal feeling, yet often unable to be expressed by those facing death.  We as humans so often feel guilt for the emotional reactions of others, when in reality, we are all ultimately responsible for our own reactions.  Death is sad, and we all express sadness and grief in our own ways.  I urge anyone who is supporting others through death, just to sit and listen as all the thoughts and feelings are finally released and poured out.  It is so freeing for the person to finally verbalise what has been held deep inside and it’s also validating for them to finally be heard.

Eventually, I said “They are human beings.  If they didn’t feel sadness, pain, if there were no tears, then I’d really be worried”.  

She found that rather amusing and started laughing. “True”, she said.

Privately, I told her mum about her main fear of whether her loved ones would be OK.

With each visit over the following weeks, we’d always have a check-in into how she was feeling about everything. She’d talk, I’d simply listen.  If there were more worries or anxieties, we worked through them and the rest of the time would be spent on funny stories, jokes, and memories.

I thanked her for being my friend and she thanked me for being hers.  I told her I would see her on the other side and she said she would be waiting.

On her final day, when the time was right, her Mum told me that she had whispered into my friend’s ear that they all loved her so very much and that they would all be OK.  She peacefully passed over.

The final journey of Ted the clinic dog

Then two days after her funeral, my little dog Ted, who had been my assistant at the clinic for so long, took a turn for the worse.  Previously, Ted had experienced seizures and strokes, which had left him disabled, but he had been stroke and seizure free for 3 years. He may have walked like a drunk dog, barked a little weird, but he was very happy.  My partner and I knew Ted’s end of life was near and he started to deteriorate rapidly. 

On the fourth day I began the arrangements for him to be put to sleep.  I organised a gathering with the people he loved, our other two dogs plus other dogs he liked.  We held a ceremony for him, drank cacao in ceremony, lit incense and he was allowed to eat whatever he wanted.  Then the next day, the fifth day, we made the journey to the North of the island to the vets.  It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, we sat outside, sheep bleating, birds singing and a gentle breeze. I held Ted in my arms, who was barely responsive at this point and the injections were administered. I told him what a good boy he was.  He passed away very peacefully in my arms.

We miss him terribly, clients come in and ask where he is, which gives me the brief pangs of grief for a second or two.  However, it has given me the opportunity to train my other two dogs into potential clinic dogs.  It’s a bit hit and miss, they’re both able-bodied dogs, which is worlds apart from having a disabled dog.  There’s no wobbling around the room slowly and having lots of sleeps.  Instead, there’s excitement, bouncing and demanding of fuss from every visitor that enters their second space.  I’ll just have to see how this progresses.

Metabolising grief and the physical experience

The emotional pain I was in after those two deaths was obvious to all who spoke to me.  The physical expression of grief amazed me more.  Big clumps of hair came out when I washed my hair, my thyroid became swollen, my IBS flared up, I was tired all the time, I was desperate for a break but I couldn’t take one (the joys of self-employment). My emotional, mental and physical self were all grieving.  I was reminded of how schizophrenic grief was. One minute feeling fine, the next with a click of a finger, feeling so emotional.  

Eventually that oscillation between positive and negative states slowed and I was able to get myself back on track by starting to look after myself in the ways that I knew how – herbs, essences, vitamins, homoeopathy, healthy eating, embodiment practices, breathwork, exercise, meditations, walks, calling on fellow therapists for treatment. 

These things were practically impossible to do in the early throes of grief and that was OK. Grief needed its time, its recognition, its validation, its experience, its feelings and its process. It needed to be honoured.  For me in the early days, I felt to deny or numb it with protocols, herbs, essences, oils, to try and rush it through or park it, would have meant it would come back and bite me twice as hard on the ass in the future.  I needed to walk with grief, just raw grief and I, at its own pace to heal, to be present.

Grief Hubs

• The Good Grief Festival: https://goodgrieffest.com/

Grief Support Charities

• Cruse Bereavement Isle of Man https://www.cruseisleofman.org/
• Tabitha’s Trust https://www.tabithastrust.com/