WHAT THE HAL? PODCAST 2.0 – EPISODE 24: Facing Life's Final Chapter with Compassion
WHAT THE HAL? PODCAST 2.0 – EPISODE 24
The Death Doula: Facing Life's Final Chapter with Compassion
Death is one of the few experiences everyone will eventually face, yet it remains one of the hardest subjects to discuss. But a growing group of professionals is helping individuals and families approach the end of life with greater understanding, preparation, and support.
In this episode, Hal Eisner, Elsa Ramon, and Hunter Lowry speak with Judy Iannaccone, founder of Spirited Crossings in Orange County, California, about her work as an end-of-life doula and grief coach. After losing her brother to cancer in 2018, Judy discovered a calling to help families navigate the uncertainty, emotions, and practical challenges surrounding death.
The conversation explores what death doulas do, how they complement hospice care, and what families may experience during a loved one's final days. Judy also discusses grief, end-of-life visions, advance directives, legacy projects, and the growing Death Café movement, which encourages people to talk openly about mortality rather than avoid it.
KEY TOPICS
• What a death doula is and the emotional, spiritual, and practical support they provide
• How end-of-life doulas complement hospice care without replacing medical professionals
• How the sudden loss of Judy's brother inspired her career change
• Common physical changes during the dying process, including appetite, sleep, and breathing
• The unexpected bursts of energy some people experience near the end of life
• End-of-life visions, reaching gestures, and experiences reported by families
• Why some people appear to wait until loved ones leave the room before dying
• Grief coaching and supporting surviving family members
• Advance directives, final wishes, and meaningful legacy projects
• Training, costs, finding a death doula, and the role of Death Cafés
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Original Theme Music by Stuart Pearson
https://stuartpearsonmusic.com
Listen to Previous Episodes
https://audioboom.com/channels/4960408-what-the-hal
Resources
Spirited Crossings — Judy Iannaccone
International End of Life Doula Association (INELDA)
National End-of-Life Doula Alliance (NEDA)
Death Café — Community Conversations About Death and Dying
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Hal Eisner
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https://facebook.com/haleisner
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Elsa Ramon
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https://instagram.com/elsamramon
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Hunter Lowry
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Transcript
A generation ago, there were social rules that prohibited bringing up sex and politics and religion and polite company.
Speaker A:Clearly, those days are gone.
Speaker A:But there is one topic that is still not normally brought up in conversation, and that's what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker A:I'm Al Eisner, along with Hunter Lowery and Elsa Ramon.
Speaker A:And this is what the hell?
Speaker A:Smart, fresh, and uplifting.
Speaker A:We've got the stories that make you want to say.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker A:The hell?
Speaker A:That foreboding subject is death.
Speaker A:It makes nearly everyone uncomfortable.
Speaker A:I bet you're uncomfortable right now,.
Speaker B:But it's kind of hilarious when you think about it.
Speaker B:The one thing we're so reluctant to talk about is the one thing that everybody experiences, but a group of professionals is working to bring death out of the shadows.
Speaker C:Yeah, what's that saying, guys?
Speaker C:No one gets out alive, so we may as well talk about it.
Speaker C:Joining us today is Judy Annecone.
Speaker C:She left a career with the Red Cross to become what's called a death doula.
Speaker C:She's also the founder of Spirited Crossings in Orange County, California.
Speaker C:So, first of all, thank you so much, Judy, for joining us, because I know as soon as people probably hear that term death doula, they say, I've never heard of that before.
Speaker C:And why don't you tell people what that is?
Speaker D:Thank you so much for asking this question, Elsa.
Speaker D:People are hearing the term and they're going, what is that?
Speaker D:Basically, we are individuals who walk alongside people who are preparing to die.
Speaker D:And the reality is we are all preparing to die.
Speaker D:And we may not have our actual expiration date, but right in front of us, we may not have that diagnosis that tells us it's coming sooner than later.
Speaker D:But it is something that is hardwired into our being a human being.
Speaker D:We are born, we live, and we die.
Speaker D:And that is the reality.
Speaker D:And there is no doubt that most people in this culture do not want to speak about dying.
Speaker D:We just want to put it out of the room, put it away from our mind.
Speaker D:And maybe it'll go away.
Speaker D:Well, it won't.
Speaker D:So one thing that I've learned over my experience is the more we talk about it, the more comfortable we get with it and the more it isn't quite so.
Speaker D:That scary thing, that thing hiding in the closet under the bed that we just don't want to look at, if we talk about it and we know more about, becomes a little easier to there.
Speaker D:And basically, what do death doulas do?
Speaker D:I have clients that are preparing to die, and I say some of them not right away.
Speaker D:Maybe they're just elderly.
Speaker D:Maybe they have a disease like Parkinson's, for example, and they know that their time is going to come sooner than somebody else's.
Speaker D:And they want to get their affairs in order.
Speaker D:They also want to talk about their life.
Speaker D:So basically we walk alongside them.
Speaker D:We provide, I would say, emotional, spiritual and practical support.
Speaker D:Those are kind of the three feet of the death doula's stool, if you will.
Speaker D:And by practical support, that may be that a family needs to find a caregiver.
Speaker D:We are not caregivers.
Speaker D:I want to point that out from the get go.
Speaker D:But we can help people find resources to support their situation.
Speaker D:Maybe they're ready to go into hospice, but they don't know which hospice to go into.
Speaker D:We can offer them suggestions, people to talk to.
Speaker D:And I think it's more that sitting alongside that open, listening that heart that is not making any judgment whatsoever on where somebody's coming from that place to talk things out, to think about things that might not be resolved and what might they do about it.
Speaker D:Perhaps also to do some kind of legacy project.
Speaker D:Maybe they have grandkids they want to leave letters, cards, something that's going to go to them at certain milestones in their life.
Speaker D:So those kinds of things, people work with death doulas on and just have them to support themselves and also their family members.
Speaker D:It's not just for the person who's facing the end, it is for the family because that is a journey that they're walking through and we are folks that can be there.
Speaker D:And, you know, gosh, who wouldn't like somebody to hold their hand, to be showing up and to talk about this topic that nobody really wants to talk about.
Speaker D:And I think the more we do talk about it, the more comfortable we get with it.
Speaker C:I think just speaking as a living human being, I get the sense that people are afraid to talk about it because in some way doing that speaks it into existence.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:We're acknowledging it, we're speaking it into existence.
Speaker C:But I, you know, it doesn't make sense because we plan for retirement, we plan for the birth of a child, we plan, you know, savings accounts for kids to go to college.
Speaker C:And this is one area, you know, like you said, just no one wants to talk about it because, you know, it's, it'll happen if I talk about it.
Speaker C:But recently I was just telling Hal and Hunter that on Instagram one day a death doulas account popped into my feed and out of curiosity, I was listening and of course the algorithm picked up on That I stayed longer than 10 seconds and I was flooded with death doulas.
Speaker C:But the point is, I. I was learning such fascinating things about what they witness from the person dying, from the family members there, from the whole process, what the body physically does, what the family does.
Speaker C:It's really fascinating.
Speaker C:And I feel that these people who have these accounts on Instagram are really.
Speaker C:I hate to call them influencers because I feel that minimizes their role.
Speaker C:They are really trying to bring the conversation forward and bring up the topic and have people talk about it and the fascinating things that happen when we die.
Speaker D:I think the whole thing is death awareness.
Speaker D:And something that doulas bring into death doulas bring into the space is we've walked this path before.
Speaker D:We know what's normal.
Speaker D:We can educate a family on that normalcy.
Speaker D:And that is so key because otherwise it's.
Speaker D:We don't, you know, a lot of people, if you ask them, you know, how many people do you know that have been close to you that have died?
Speaker D:Maybe they're going to say one or two.
Speaker D:And it just depends how old they are.
Speaker D:But some people may be nobody.
Speaker D:So this is a new territory for them.
Speaker D:And I, it, you know, it brings to mind one of my really early experiences being an end of life doula.
Speaker D:And I walked into.
Speaker D:I was volunteering with a hospice at that point, and I walked into a room where I was going to sit vigil with somebody who was getting close to dying.
Speaker D:And.
Speaker D:And there were two family members in that room.
Speaker D:And when I walked and they knew why I was coming, and when I walked into that space, you know, I introduced myself.
Speaker D:How are they and how are things going?
Speaker D:And I could see them relax.
Speaker D:Second by second, their shoulders were going away from their ears, and it was as if the room just let a sigh.
Speaker D:And what I could hear in that space was, oh, she's been here before.
Speaker D:We don't have to carry this weight alone.
Speaker D:And that's the key to it.
Speaker D:Nobody really has to carry it alone.
Speaker A:Can I ask a question,.
Speaker D:Please?
Speaker A:And this is.
Speaker A:No, no, no, no.
Speaker A:This is.
Speaker A:This is kind of like really elementary, but it sounds the word.
Speaker A:If you're listening on audio or you're watching here on YouTube, what you're hearing is doula.
Speaker A:It sounds like doula, like a fencer, you know, and it's doula.
Speaker A:D O U, L, A.
Speaker A:And so what does that word mean?
Speaker A:Doula.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:I hate to say it.
Speaker D:It means slave.
Speaker D:It's a Greek word.
Speaker D:And it was a role.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Historically, it's a role that women played.
Speaker D:And I'm not saying that women were all slaves, please, you know that.
Speaker D:But basically it's that person that the helper, that's the supporter and that, you know, that's where birth doulas came.
Speaker D:People have heard about birth doulas, death doula.
Speaker D:We're just the bookend.
Speaker D:And I'm not, not to diminish either end because both are just as important.
Speaker D:And you know, you mentioned before also how many people they planned for a birth, they planned for a vacation.
Speaker D:I mean, how many times, you know, drive the right hotel or the ticket spot, blah, blah, blah, people.
Speaker D:It's like, no, I'm not going to plan for death.
Speaker D:As if, if you did, it was going to come sooner rather than, oh, if I plan for it, I don't need to worry about it.
Speaker B:Well, a lot of people just don't want to think about it.
Speaker B:I mean, it's, and you are in an unusual profession, shall we say.
Speaker B:Not a lot of people do this.
Speaker B:What brought you to this?
Speaker B:How did you choose this?
Speaker D:Thank you for asking, Hunter.
Speaker D:I appreciate that.
Speaker D: Back in: Speaker D:And I was called to his bedside in Florida where he was living.
Speaker D:And it was all very sudden and lots of questions, very few answers.
Speaker D:And the truth is he died very quickly.
Speaker D:It was just five days.
Speaker D:But during that time, we didn't have answers to questions.
Speaker D:We tried to find doctors, we couldn't find them.
Speaker D:He was in a hospital.
Speaker D:And we were just, we felt so adrift.
Speaker D:And I found myself thinking almost every moment that I was with him, am I doing the right thing?
Speaker D:What does he need?
Speaker D:I don't know what he needs.
Speaker D:He seems to be suffering.
Speaker D:Is he suffering?
Speaker D:What's going on here?
Speaker D:So I went away from that experience thinking there has to be more families, need something more.
Speaker D:I didn't know about death doulas at that point.
Speaker D: This is: Speaker D:But I started looking, I had just retired, by the way, and I started looking for what that could be.
Speaker D:And I quickly discovered the role.
Speaker D:And I thought, I think I could do this.
Speaker D:I can sit next to death.
Speaker D:It doesn't make me squeamish to say it doesn't affect me.
Speaker D:It does.
Speaker D:I'm comfortable in that environment.
Speaker D:And I went about getting the kind of training that I needed to do to, to hold that role.
Speaker C:So I, I, I'm not surprised that a lot of people haven't heard of a death doula because, just because of what I've been learning from the doula accounts on Instagram.
Speaker C:But I also go into the comments and I find even hospice nurses are asking, hey, I've done this for 25 years in hospice.
Speaker C:I've never heard of a death doula.
Speaker C:So, you know, even don't feel bad if you're listening to this and you've never heard of this because there are hospice nurses who are admittedly saying, I've never heard of this.
Speaker C:But one of the things I find really fascinating about what the doulas do when they post is they talk about specific things.
Speaker C:And there seems to be a thread in all of the ones that I've seen of the specific characteristics that are happening while people are in the process of dying.
Speaker C:And many of them are the same across the board.
Speaker C:Can you tell us some of those specific things that you witnessed people who are dying do and that the family witnesses as well?
Speaker D:I think one of the things I'm going to mention because I think it's so important is people are preparing to die and this could be happening a week before.
Speaker D:It varies.
Speaker D:There isn't.
Speaker D:It's like there's not exactly a specific timeline on this day, at this hour, so on, but there are patterns.
Speaker D:And one of the things is that as the body is starting to shut down, people don't want to eat and they don't want to drink.
Speaker D:And unfortunately, well, it's a double edged sword.
Speaker D:Our society matches food and eating with love.
Speaker D:And so there's a sense of, well, my mother doesn't want to eat, but she needs to eat because if she doesn't eat, she's going to die.
Speaker D:And so there's a sense of we really want to, I don't want to say force, but highly encourage.
Speaker D:But the reality is when that time comes, the body's shutting down and digestion is not happening the same way that it did.
Speaker D:And in reality, by encouraging somebody to eat, you may be causing them pain.
Speaker D:So that's one thing I try to educate people about all the time.
Speaker D:And then as the process begins, people are sleeping more and more, they'll see that maybe it's, they'll be sleeping more naps to begin with and they'll be waking for time.
Speaker D:And then maybe they have a day that they're just sleeping the whole time.
Speaker D:And this can be kind of scary if you don't know that this again is part of the natural process.
Speaker D:And then there is something speaking about the sleeping part as it might be getting towards the end.
Speaker D:I know with my brother this happened and I've seen it with other People as well.
Speaker D:There's sort of this.
Speaker D:I don't know, this last hurrah, this moment where energy rises.
Speaker D:And maybe the family could think, because they go, oh, wow, she sat up.
Speaker D:She even got out of bed.
Speaker D:And she's visiting with all these people.
Speaker D:She's getting better.
Speaker D:And there is that sense.
Speaker D:But very often it's just that the human being wants to have their last encounter with life.
Speaker D:And so that is a moment that will pass.
Speaker D:And then again, the sleeping pattern will start again.
Speaker D:And then eventually what happens is the blood starts going away from the extremities of the body because it's, again trying to preserve life.
Speaker D:That's what our body's trying to do.
Speaker D:Because we are human beings.
Speaker D:We are also basically an animal.
Speaker D:And as it goes away from the extremities, what's called mottling sets in.
Speaker D:And what that is when hands or feet start looking kind of purplish.
Speaker D:And that is a sign that death is coming kind of soon.
Speaker D:And then breathing starts changing.
Speaker D:Initially, because somebody's in bed a lot, they're getting a lot of fluid that's building up.
Speaker D:And there's sort of the thing that people call the death rattle.
Speaker D:It is really this fluid that's moving around that.
Speaker D:And Hospice can give medication for that to lessen the effect.
Speaker D:It's not hurting the person, but it may be psychologically hurting the people in the room.
Speaker D:It's not necessary, but they may desire that.
Speaker D:And then breathing slows down.
Speaker D:There's some gasping that may happen.
Speaker D:And again, the person is not in pain.
Speaker D:This is just the process that our body knows how to do.
Speaker D:Nobody has to teach us how to do this.
Speaker D:It's just like, we didn't have to get taught how to be born.
Speaker D:This is just what happens.
Speaker D:And then the breathing slows down and slows down, and then eventually it stops.
Speaker A:You're reminding me of a story I told Elsa and Hunter earlier.
Speaker A:I had a landlady years ago, and she was elderly and was.
Speaker A:Was in ill health.
Speaker A:And then convalescent center.
Speaker A:And, you know, there was a day where, you know, I was at that center, and I said to her, I said, you know, if you don't eat, you know what happens?
Speaker A:Because she didn't want to eat anything.
Speaker A:She said, I know.
Speaker A:And I think I knew what that meant.
Speaker A:And then later I heard the gasp.
Speaker A:And it's the only time that I have ever had somebody die in my presence.
Speaker A:I mean, as a news person, we deal with death a lot.
Speaker A:You know, people get killed in all kinds of ways, but this was the first time somebody actually shut down in my presence.
Speaker A:And it is.
Speaker A:It's a difficult thing to kind of get your head around.
Speaker A:And you made the comment that I learned to sit next to death.
Speaker A:I don't know how hard or how easy that is, but I found it a little disconcerting to know that I just watched somebody take their last breath.
Speaker D:It can be.
Speaker D:And I think it's a question of taking time to absorb that, sit with it, be with it.
Speaker A:How'd you do that?
Speaker A:How did you learn how to do that?
Speaker D:Well, I have to say that my initial experiences were with my loved ones.
Speaker D:So I wanted to be with that.
Speaker D:I didn't want to miss it, and I wanted to be there for them as much as I could be at that point.
Speaker D:And I would say I approach the same thing with my clients.
Speaker D:I hold space for them, I provide my presence to them.
Speaker D:I provide a container for their experience.
Speaker D:And it's just a human being that needs my support at that moment.
Speaker D:And I bring my life experience, my training, my compassion to that moment.
Speaker B:I think another thing that makes people reluctant to talk about this subject is even if you are accepting of end of life experiences, we all die, right?
Speaker B:But nobody wants to get into it because while, you know, as news people, we deal with a lot of death.
Speaker B:The one thing that always gutted me was the survivors and their emotions and the heavy emotions of the survivors and their grief I found so debilitating that I had trouble dealing with it.
Speaker B:And you are also a grief counselor, is that correct?
Speaker D:Grief coach.
Speaker D:Grief coach.
Speaker B:Grief coach.
Speaker B:What does that entail and how does that work?
Speaker D:Again, it's very much just being present for the person, helping them talk through their emotions, being that person that isn't judging in any way and offering them some tools that might help them through giving them some grounding tools that can keep them out of that.
Speaker D:And even I do this with my clients who are dying with their family members as well as those people who are who remain, giving them the ability to be in the moment rather than to get so wound up in all that's going around them.
Speaker C:You know, if we are all lucky enough to be able to die with our family surrounding us, holding us, supporting us, and then having the care from doctors and nurses to minimize pain and make it as comfortable as possible, that's something that would bring me comfort and has brought me comfort to people I've stood next to in my family and outside my family who have died.
Speaker C:Another thing I was reading about, what death doulas encounter that brings some comfort to the family members and friends surrounding their dying loved one is something I read about called like the death reach and the things that are said by the person dying as they're doing this.
Speaker C:Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker C:Explain what that is and what you.
Speaker D:And I don't know that it's just at the very end that this happened, happens.
Speaker D:I had the experience with one of my clients, I would say, and she was a rather elderly woman, she was in her 90s, who'd been bedridden for a couple of years after an injury, who had advanced dementia.
Speaker D:Although she was very cogent sometimes, you never knew.
Speaker D:I would meet her wherever she was, on a day to day basis that I saw her and she.
Speaker D:And it wasn't.
Speaker D:I don't think it was because of her dementia that this happened, because it was happening more as she was getting close to the end, I would come in and I'd say, you know, hey, you know, how are you today?
Speaker D:What's going on?
Speaker D:And she'd say, oh, my husband's here.
Speaker D:He's right over here on the couch.
Speaker D:And of course I knew the husband had been gone for a long time at that point.
Speaker D:And I have seen and by the reach, basically what happens very often is that I don't know what it is about the right corner of the room, but that's often what I've experienced.
Speaker D:And sometimes people literally reach their arms up and sometimes they say something, sometimes they say, well, don't you see my mother or whoever it is that's there.
Speaker D:And there have been many books written on this subject where hospice doctors have witnessed this hundreds of times.
Speaker D:For me, and it's according to your belief system, it's very comforting to know that somebody is there to walk them through.
Speaker D:And that's how I interpret it.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker C:Me too.
Speaker C:But I, you know, and like you said, it's not just because she had dementia.
Speaker C:These were stories that were consistent through all the doulas and things that I've read and people in various stages.
Speaker C:Dementia, no dementia whatever.
Speaker C:But they would say things like, oh, grandma or ma, you know, and I don't know, as a family member that would make me feel like, you know, I can't see what's happening on the other side.
Speaker C:And I believe that this is happening.
Speaker C:And that brings me comfort.
Speaker B:This is, this is something I have heard repeatedly about people whose relatives are at the end of their lives.
Speaker B:And it's actually something that happened with my father.
Speaker B:People say that sometimes the loved ones leave and then the person can pass on and while the people are surrounding them, they hang on.
Speaker B:And then the minute, you know, we went to go get something to eat and you know, my father apparently then felt free to go.
Speaker B:Is this something that you see?
Speaker D:Yeah, it does happen.
Speaker D:And I think it's, everybody's death is very individual, just as they are.
Speaker D:We are all individuals.
Speaker D:So some people may not want to do death with a witness.
Speaker D:So it's happened in my family and I've certainly known it many, many times.
Speaker D:It's like, but I just left the room for a minute and they left.
Speaker D:And that, that is common.
Speaker D:It's very common.
Speaker D:But it's, it, it's just, it's, it's, you know, I don't have an explanation for it.
Speaker D:I think it's a perfect personal preference.
Speaker D:Why do some people die in their sleep?
Speaker D:I don't know.
Speaker A:You know, I, I, I'm curious and this is a little bit off, off topic here.
Speaker A:Just from, just from the perspective of what you do.
Speaker A:This is not covered by insurance, right?
Speaker A:This is not requiring a license.
Speaker A:Correct.
Speaker A:How do you get paid?
Speaker A:I mean, is there a standard for doulas?
Speaker A:You know, is there a minimum doula wage?
Speaker A:That's at work?
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker D:I'll address two things you brought up, Hal.
Speaker D:First, you said something relating to, I think, training or certification.
Speaker D:I'll explain that.
Speaker D:Whereas, for example, a nurse has to have a license and a state has to recognize that license.
Speaker D:No such thing has been put into place for death doulas anywhere in the US So that is not in existence.
Speaker D:And the training, I will be honest, is not consistent.
Speaker D:We are all not created equal.
Speaker D:Some people have had a weekend of training and they are now a death doula.
Speaker D:My initial training, I believe was something like, I can't remember exactly, but I think it was like 30 hours of training and it was good training.
Speaker D:It was from the International Anelda, the International Doula Association.
Speaker D:It was lovely, but I felt just me, I needed more and I went and got a training that lasted a full year.
Speaker D:It was a 600 hour training online as well as in person residency, as well as basically an internship with client hours that were monitored by my teacher, basically supervised hours.
Speaker D:So that is kind of two extremes of the picture.
Speaker D:And I think what people are interested in, and it is true it is not covered by insurance.
Speaker D:Some, I will say this hasn't happened with death doulas yet, but I have noticed that there is a movement to start covering birth doulas.
Speaker D:So maybe, maybe at some point I don't know if in my lifetime or not death doulas will be included in Medicare coverage.
Speaker D:I don't know.
Speaker D:But it is not covered.
Speaker D:And yes, to get paid, it's not an easy track to do.
Speaker D:And is there a standard salary?
Speaker D:No.
Speaker D:I think basically I know what I did was I researched what the market would bear in our area and that is how I set my fees.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker A:Well, let me ask you, I mean, if I wanted for my family to have a death tool, what would it cost them?
Speaker D:I can't specifically say.
Speaker D:I can tell you a general idea of about $100 an hour.
Speaker D:And then people have packages where they're selling more sessions.
Speaker D:So there would be a reduced fee on that.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:I mean, that's interesting.
Speaker B:How do you know, how do you know when to reach out?
Speaker B:How do you, I mean, people's death timeline is so un.
Speaker B:Unknown.
Speaker B:How.
Speaker B:When do you say, I have a family member, I should, I should pull the trigger, I should do this.
Speaker B:And how do, how do you do that?
Speaker D:Well, I think one thing is, is the family needs to be in agreement.
Speaker D:What I have seen, I very often get calls from a daughter, a son, something like, or a friend, and they're not of a consensus.
Speaker D:And then, you know, nothing happens.
Speaker D:So that's number one.
Speaker D:Number two, the sooner the better because planning is very important.
Speaker D:We didn't, I didn't mention that advanced directives, things like that need to be in place.
Speaker D:People knowing what their wishes are, end of life wishes, and then communicating them with family members.
Speaker D:So certainly anybody that's, I would say getting older needs to have these things in place.
Speaker D:But you know, anybody needs to think about a will, a trust, those kinds of things, because we don't know what's going to happen today, tomorrow.
Speaker D:And as far as if somebody is very.
Speaker D:Getting closer to the end, again, sooner is better.
Speaker D:It doesn't mean that the death doula has to take up residence with your family.
Speaker D:Maybe it's just to get acquainted with them, to have some visits with the person and then you go from there.
Speaker D:Is this something that you want to happen weekly?
Speaker D:Is it something that you need more often?
Speaker D:Or maybe it's something you now know that person and it's not quite time, but when the time feels better, then you know who to call.
Speaker D:So it's a very individual thing.
Speaker D:I have, like I say that one client I was with for two years.
Speaker D:I have seen people with diseases like Parkinson's who aren't going to be dying soon, but they totally know that their diagnosis Is will have an end and they want to start thinking about it, but they may not continue with the death doula at that point.
Speaker D:They may stay with one for a while and then return.
Speaker D:So very individual.
Speaker D:Very individual.
Speaker A:Very interesting.
Speaker A:Very interesting.
Speaker A:Is there.
Speaker A:Is there a website someplace where people can get more information?
Speaker D:Well, I have a website for one and I'm actually in the course of redoing it, but it's SpiritedCrossings.com my company name is Spirited Crossings, the Anelda website that I mentioned.
Speaker D:I n e l d a.org they have a directory on there.
Speaker D:People can find doulas there.
Speaker D:There is also there.
Speaker D:I mean, I think if literally if you go into Google and you put death doula near me or wherever you live, you're going to come up with people that you can.
Speaker D:You can look at.
Speaker D:Another site that's really good is nada neda.
Speaker D:And they also have a directory on their site.
Speaker A:All right,.
Speaker B:You mentioned something to me yesterday.
Speaker B:I think you said that you were conducting a death cafe.
Speaker B:Can you explain what that's all about and how people can get involved with that?
Speaker B:If they want to just open up the conversation,.
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker D:It's a great way to open the conversation.
Speaker D:Death cafe is something that's been in existence for quite a long time now.
Speaker D:There are thousands of death cafes all across the world.
Speaker D:And what the heck is a death cafe?
Speaker D:Well, sometimes it happens in person where people come and I'm a member of the Orange County.
Speaker D:Yes, there is such a thing as the Orange County Death Workers alliance.
Speaker D:And we have a death cafe once a month that we have in Laguna beach.
Speaker D:And it's in the evening and lasts about an hour and a half.
Speaker D:And people come and bring up any topic that they want to around death and dying.
Speaker D:You know, they want to talk about Green burial.
Speaker D:What do they want to talk?
Speaker D:Whatever occurs to them.
Speaker D:And it's a place to get more comfortable with talking about death, to learn something new about it, to think about something that you hadn't thought about or something you might need to do or want to do.
Speaker D:And there's certainly ones in LA as well.
Speaker A:All very interesting, all very significant, all very meaningful.
Speaker A:And thank you so much for.
Speaker A:For sharing your knowledge.
Speaker A:I mean, I didn't know that much about duelling, but.
Speaker A:Sorry, don't mean to make light of it.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker C:Dad joke.
Speaker A:Yeah, dad jokes.
Speaker A:And I guess you probably do some of that as well in your job.
Speaker A:But, you know, I know more about this than when we started.
Speaker A:And what the hell, I mean, that's what this is all about.
Speaker A:And thank you so very much.
Speaker A:And that's what the hell 2.0.
Speaker A:I'm Hal Eisner along with Elsa Ramon and Hunter Lowery.
Speaker A:This podcast is produced by Hunter.
Speaker A:Jamie Knapp is our Technical Director Editor and he handles all of the post production.
Speaker A:Our original theme music is composed by Stuart Pearson.
Speaker A:Earlier versions of the podcast were produced at the studios of Fox 11 in Los Angeles and are available through the link in our Show Notes.
Speaker A:This version of the podcast is available on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker A:And what the Hell 2.0 is produced in Los Angeles, California.
