The Gift of Trust
A commonly held view among those who work in hospice, or with end of life patients in general, is that most people who need to go on hospice wait too long to do it. Instead of opting for hospice care when they receive their terminal diagnosis, they decide to do one more round of chemo, […]
Summer Summit Spotlight – Emma Acker
Everybody dies. We all know this; as death care professionals we face this reality every single day. One of the challenges of death care work is the fact that even though everyone dies, not everyone has the resources to pay for good care at the end of their life, and unfortunately this happens to be […]
Is It Time to Revisit Your Advance Care Plan?
I’m getting ready to take a big trip in the fall, and as I was working on preparations today it occurred to me that it’s been a while since this blog said anything about advance care planning. When it comes to making an advance care plan, a lot of people think it’s something you do […]
Summer Summit Spotlight – Your Morbid Friends
One of the reasons talking to people about death can be so challenging is that it often means talking to them about what is most important to them in life. It can sometimes require a vulnerability that is difficult for people, as they worry about whether they will be valued for what makes them who […]
Death Book Roundup 3
It’s time for another book round up! Who doesn’t love a little summer reading? Previous book recommendations on this blog have focused on non-fiction books and memoirs by death care professionals. This time we want to tell you about some books that really get inside the grief experience in a more personal way. Most of […]
Summer Summit – Through the Eyes of a Death Doula
Everyone here at IDLM has had the experience of telling someone they are a death doula and being met with the question, “What’s that?” We perform a necessary function, serving people in ways that have been essential for thousands of years—but at the same time, the changes in deathways across the twentieth century and the […]
My Love Affair With Forest Lawn
Forest Lawn is a company with several cemetery properties; by coincidence I happened to grow up just a few miles away from their main site in Glendale, California. It was a lovely place to meditate on life, death, or in my case, Poli Sci homework.
Get Ready for Summer Summit 2025!
The days are long and the weather is getting warmer. Summer is just about here, and that means the International Doula Life Movement Summer Summit is right around the corner.
Library or Hospital?
In a former life I had a job as a library page. It was a wonderful job: the people were nice, the work was pleasant; I was allowed to wear whatever I wanted (within reason) and I had access to soooo many books. It was the first job I ever stayed at for more than […]
Music for End of Life
A couple weeks back, I was having a pretty rough day. One of those days where nothing seems to go right, and nothing seems to help, and the only thing you can do is give up, lie in a dark room, and listen to Simon and Garfunkel on repeat. You might have a different preference […]
