Death Midwifery is part of a huge social movement emerging around what I call “doing death better.” It’s driven by the Boomer generation, and it’s happening both inside and outside of mainstream healthcare and funeral institutions [Read more…]
The Ritual of the Obituary
By not including this man in the obituary, the brother-in-law ritually dissociated him from his sister, and from the rest of his family, on both sides of the river. It was essentially a form of ritual shunning [Read more…]
Where, Exactly, is Heaven?
All her life, this woman had believed that God was a man with a white beard who lived above the clouds, which is exactly what she’d been taught in school and church. She tried to live a good life so she would go there when she died [Read more…]
Meeting Death as a Couple
The pressure of facing his death was putting an enormous strain on their marriage. When the tension surfaced, it was easy for them to believe that the stress and discomfort they were each feeling was caused by something the other person [Read more…]
Digging my Father’s Grave
There’s something deeply cathartic about passing the shovel from hand to hand, and carving out a spot for the one we love. At some primal level, people know how important this task is, and the sign we’re finished is not that [Read more…]
Birth Midwifery and Death Midwifery
I can’t tell you how many people have told me they thought they’d invented the term Death Doula or Death Midwife. They were thinking about how poorly we meet death, and then about how we’re better at meeting birth, and [Read more…]
Energetic Tools for Being with Grief
I can get very emotional about lots of things, but I don’t cry much when I’m working with families. I’ve developed some really helpful practices that allow me to stay present, even in situations of intense grief. [Read more…]
Saying Goodbye to Bill
My dad, Bill Kerr, died on April 5th, 2017. Here are series of Facebook posts and photos from the days before and after his death, telling the story of my family’s experience. You can also read his obituary, and watch the video we showed at his funeral. [Read more…]
On Postponing the Funeral
The family needed the time to organize a big ceremony, but they also needed closure after this shocking event. There’s a shift in our souls that happens when someone we love dies, and for a while we’re in an in-between world [Read more…]
Why Funerals Don’t Make You Sad
My client is conflicted: part of her feels it’s important to have some sort of community event, but another part is so grief-stricken and heartbroken that she wants to call off the plans she’s begun to make for it. The idea of gathering with other [Read more…]