You may be asking, why “become an end of life Doula?”. Well, it was a personal journey for me to arrive at this decision.
At the age of 21 I lost my Dad to Cancer. Being 21, I sincerely believed life was an endless journey of fun, and that something as devastating as losing a loved one couldn’t happen; not to me. It was a quick lesson in that we are not immortal and that bad things do happen, and happen every day for us all. It was just under a year from prognosis to Dads last breath. It was all medical and just going through the ‘cogs’ of what was to happen through the process. Even after Dad had passed, we just went through what we were advised to do at the time.
13 years later I lost my Mum to cancer. At this stage I was thankful to get that time with Mum, but to have lost two parents by age of 33 was a lot for me at the time. To this day, I continue to treasure personal and heartfelt moments that I shared with my Mum and Dad. With the hospital visits and doctor appointments with Mum, it felt as though it was one thing after another to me.
In hindsight, the end of life journey felt overly medical to me. I believe that if we were lucky enough to have a ‘Doula’ to help with information and support to make choices then maybe things could have been done in different manner. Alas, we didn’t and we all did the best with the information that we had.
I always try to put a positive on the situation and be thankful for the time I had with my parents. Don’t get me wrong, some days I feel robbed, especially on special occasions and I just want to talk to family or friends, but it is hard as this is my experience and sometimes others don’t want to talk about it. It is sometimes a Taboo subject. My family understands as they went through it as well in their own journey so I know I can pick up the phone and chat away. I have to respect that sometimes others aren’t comfortable to talk about it and that is okay.
So I come to now and I am not scared to talk about death. It is natural that we all live and we all will die one day – ‘the circle of life’. As somebody said, the more we talk about death, the more we respect and enjoy life.
A personal ‘lightbulb moment’ for me was sparked by a poem written by Linda Ellis, called ‘Living your Dash’. Reading that poem now, I view the journey of life through a completely different lens. I always looked at a headstone and thought of that little dash between the years as a numeric measure, how old that person was. After reading this excellent poem, it changed my personal thinking. How do we live our dash? How much wonderful moments and memories can we fit in that dash? Now I read that poem by Linda Ellis and look at life through different eyes.
To help transform the experience of end of life care, I went to Melbourne for an intense but extremely informative ‘Preparing The Way’ course led by Helen Callanan. Helen is an extremely wonderful, compassionate and knowledgeable teacher who guided us ‘up and coming’ Doulas. Helen is my ‘go to’ with everything; and I know that with her guidance I will help ‘travellers’ to fulfil their end of life journeys alongside their loved ones.
I am accredited with Natural Death Advocate Network, the Australian Doula College and have met all the requirements necessary to help others.
So to get back to my decision to becoming a ‘Preparing The Way’ Doula. From my journey through life (thus far), I believe I have personally grown to be an empathetic and compassionate person that can provide others with knowledge, advice and choices.
It doesn’t have to be a medical experience if somebody is faced with a terminal or life threatening illness. Clients can exercise their options if they’re available; instead of experiencing a passive and potentially robotic end of life journey.
There are many options that we as ‘travellers’ in life can help those we leave behind, by having ‘Advance Care Plans’, wills, our wishes etc all together in one spot for them to access when we die.
It is a time for going back to ‘reversing history’ as a great lady said. I am passionate to be a ‘preparing the way Doula’ and I absolutely love helping people. That is why I became a Doula, and I love that I did.