The Beauty in the Ending: Why I’m Becoming an End-of-Life Doula

I started my year studying a new subject—or maybe an old one, depending on how you look at it. I enrolled in a course to become an end-of-life doula with Douglas College in Vancouver, BC.

Thirteen years ago, my husband passed away. Since then, I’ve thrown myself headfirst into grief—reading dozens of books, studying the subject relentlessly, and discovering that death has become my most favourite thing to learn about. It sounds strange to say it that way, but it’s true.

After his death, I went back to school. I became a Life Coach, then a Wellness Counsellor. Each step felt like the next natural chapter. But this one—becoming an end-of-life doula—feels like coming home. There are deep similarities between coaching and counselling work, the kinds of skills that translate. What’s different is the specificity: death itself. I don’t have extensive experience with it, but what little I’ve had has been utterly fascinating.

We Will All Be There

Here’s something that’s hard to say out loud, but true nonetheless: we will all face it. At some point, our bodies will shut down. They will cease to exist. And just like giving birth, the body knows what to do at the end. It has its own wisdom, its own process.

I’ve told this story before, but I’m telling it again because it changed me.

When my husband was close to passing, one of the palliative nurses pulled me aside. She told me the end was near. And then she said something that stopped me cold: “You’re doing beautiful work at home.”

Death and beauty in one sentence. My ignorance at the time couldn’t hold both those words together. How would that be possible? How could anything about dying be beautiful?

I have come a long way since then. I understand it now.

The Question That Matters

Today, during class, I had to write a paragraph about my understanding of a good death. The exercise stuck with me, and I found myself thinking: what makes a death good?

It’s a question worth asking. Not morbidly, but genuinely. Because how we die matters. Whether we die surrounded by love, with our wishes honoured, with our fears acknowledged—that matters. Whether we’ve said what needed saying, whether we’ve made peace with our lives, whether we’ve been heard—that matters.

A good death, I think, is one where someone feels safe. Where their dignity is protected. Where they aren’t alone. Where they’ve had a say in how their story ends.

That’s the work of an end-of-life doula.

I will leave you with my favourite scene from Dying for Sex, when Molly learns the process of dying: