The Journey to Here
The journey to here…
When you look back on life you can often see how various experiences were the building blocks to the ‘now’ you find yourself in. My building blocks to End of Life (EOL) work began with a relative’s infant’s death from SIDS in the first couple of months of life. Tragic. I was six years old. Four years later another infant was born into the family with heart maladies that would claim their life within the first month.
Death lurked. It was real. It separated body and soul and it was unpredictable.
The first peer death occurred in formative teen years and was a reminder of the inevitable.
The moment when I realized I was deeply interested in helping others in the death-space was when I gazed upon a dear friend’s body after a tragic death at age 23. The lively essence was gone and just the vessel remained. I looked. I sat with that realization and I recognized that while I was grieved, I wasn’t afraid of this reality. I wasn’t uncomfortable with death. I decided to explore this space until I couldn’t move forward anymore. It wasn’t the death or being uncomfortable that stopped my progression but the practical, calculated, safe decision to remain in the corporate workforce while raising a young family.
Family deaths and terminal diagnoses peppered those childrearing years. When there was another pivotal opportunity in front of our family, my grandfather began his decline. The opportunity’s door closed while I aided my mother in his care for the next two years. After his death and a year into the work on his estate, she had a chance discovery of stage four metastases of her remitted cancer which then began the next chapter of care giving. This one would last seven years until her soul was delivered from her body.
Her illness and our acute awareness of her numbered days gave us a platform to be public about death and dying. She wanted to showcase her faith and the journey therein, I wanted to honor her and create normalcy around the inevitable nature of death and dying. I wanted to break the taboos and create a known safe-space to talk about death, dying, grief.
After a year of deep, personal grief and soul-searching, I was ready to give back. I filled out an application to become a Hospice volunteer locally and began their vetting and training process. I learned so much and then continued to explore the end of life arena. I was more and more at home in this community of open conversations about topics that really matter. I enrolled and completed an End of Life/Death Doula training program with INELDA (International End of Life Doula Association). I volunteered with Hospice and I read everything I could get my hands on.
There was an awakening in my soul. While there are great comforts in the routine, security, and prestige of Corporate America, there is something so much deeper I was/am longing for: connections centered on topics of restoration, preparation, and conversation of deeply important topics, namely death, dying, grief, and wellbeing.
I find myself at this precipice. A new grief. Leaving behind so much that has encompassed my identity and given me purpose, that which has provided for me and taught me innumerable lessons along the way, that which has prepared me for the next chapter I am about to embark upon. Watch closely, my cocoon is about to fall away while my wings unfurl. Soon they will be dry enough for me to launch into my next colorful story. And I can hardly wait.
