My services only enhance what is already offered through palliative care and hospice. I’m palliative care and hospice’s biggest cheer-leader, however, in my six years of work on a palliative care team and in walking with church members and loved ones enrolled in hospice, I strongly feel like there are gaps in what is provided. One of the pieces that is often missing at end-of-life is meaning and legacy work. When a person gets a cancer or other terminal diagnosis, they often start the trajectory of chemo, medical visits, etc. However, who helps the person and their family explore what the journey has been like emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically? There are those who can assist with the medical and the financial issues, and even with the funeral preparations, but who is trained in companioning and coaching the individual and their family in finding meaning in the journey, engaging in life review and exploring legacy?
“In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds meaning.”
Victor Frankl
It is a shame that we say all these great things about loved ones at their memorial services after they have passed and what the dying individual needed desperately on their journey was to hear those things—to hear that their life mattered, that they made a difference in people’s lives, that their legacy will continue—all to assist them in letting go. That is where I come in. Just like a birth doula does at the beginning of life, I companion persons and their families at the end of their life. Unlike hospice, clients can access me whenever they want in an on-site companioning role. Some might refer to us as end-of-life coaches, advocates or mentors.
“Legacy may be understood as a way for the dying to write the ending of their story…”
Claudia Sadler-Gerhardt and J.Grant Hollenback, 2010 Article from the American Counseling Association
The Three Phase Model of Care
Summing Up & Planning
- Life Review & Legacy
- Planning for Last Days
The Vigil
- Holding Space for the Plan
- Guiding through the Process
Reprocessing & Early Grief
- Retelling the Story
- Exploring the Nature of Grief
“The function of ritual…is to give form to the human life, not in the way of a mere surface arrangement, but in depth.”
Joseph Campbell
Benefits
- Facilitate better understanding and communication about death and dying
- Help normalize the conversation about the dying process
- Help clients prepare for death and provide information about the dying process
- Help people find meaning in their lives and their pasts
- Help dying people think about who they may need to talk to about their feelings about their impending death or other things that need to be said
- Help people think about and talk about what they want their death to look like: environment, participants, rituals, visualizations, etc.
- Assure patients that we will assist in carrying out their wishes
- Assist the dying person by acting as a liaison with hospice or members of their medical team
Cost
My prices are tailored to each client based on the available finances and where the person is in the dying process and the amount of support the family/caregivers need. I am passionate about what I offer and want it to be available to everyone regardless of finances. Therefore, I offer my services on a sliding scale ($1 for every $1,000 of average yearly salary over one’s lifespan. For example, if you made $30,000/year, you would pay me $30/hour, but if you only made $7,000/year, you would pay me $7/hour). I am open to further negotiation regarding costs of my services.
- Initial one-hour consultation – FREE
- Life review, legacy project, and vigil planning (3-15 two-hour sessions)
- Vigil bed-side doula services (2-8 hours per day during active dying stage)
- Reprocessing and early grief work (1-3 two-hour sessions)