Time USA (2022-02-28)

50 Time February 28/March 7, 2022

NATION

The man is 79, has lung cancer, and is in a deep-sleep coma.
He’s wearing a blue scuba-diving shirt that’s worn out and
looks as though it’s been loved, washed, and rewashed for
many years. Besides the company of Lightner and his cat,
the man is alone and moments from dying.
Using only words, Lightner, 49, carries him away from
a home he can’t physically leave anymore and guides him
under the sea, where she knows he used to be happy. She
leans her head against his chest and tells him they’re now
swimming together in the tropical ocean, where so many vi-
brant schools of fish surround them. She describes for him
the striking blues and oranges of their fins, how the sun
pierces the still water and lights up the coral beneath them.
She tells him he’s warm, weightless, and floating.
Lightner sits beside the man for nearly seven hours. Be-
fore she leaves, she gently places his frail hand on his sleeping
cat and reassures him that his beloved pet will be fine when
he’s gone. Then she opens a window—a symbolic and spiri-
tual gesture of passage to whatever comes next.
The man died the next day, which is expected in Lightner’s

new line of work. She’s a death doula, a coach who helps the

terminally ill be at peace with dying—and she’s among hun-

dreds of Americans who’ve embraced the rising occupation

during the pandemic. Whereas birth or labor doulas provide

support and coaching at the start of life, death doulas step

in to do the same, at the end of life.

Since cOViD-19 tOOk hOlD of the country in early 2020,

organizations that support and train U.S. death doulas have

seen significant spikes in membership and enrollment. The

National End-of-Life Doula Alliance grew to more than

1,000 members in 2021, from just 200 in 2019. More than

600 people enrolled in the University of Vermont’s end-of-

life doula program in 2021, compared with fewer than 200 in

2017 when the program began. Some training groups report

enrollment more than tripled during the pandemic, as has

the number of people seeking help for themselves and oth-

ers facing imminent death. Prepandemic, Merilynne Rush

says her training group, the Dying Year, would get about six

calls a year from people looking for an end-of-life doula. Now

On a cold October

morning in Lander,

Wyo., Liz Lightner

makes a few mental

notes as she sits by

a stranger’s bedside.