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Among the new doulas are Patty and Greg Howe, a long-
time married couple who are both terminally ill. In the five
years since Greg was diagnosed with leukemia, the 66-year-
old says he has come to a “place of just complete liberation.”
His acceptance helped shape Patty’s outlook when she was
diagnosed in February with liver cancer at age 69. “We have
the choice to choose joy in everything,” Greg says. “It trans-
formed me.”
The Howes have shed what they don’t need, including
most of their material possessions and any petty problems
that once burdened them. They now live out of a candlelit
yurt in Ketchikan, Alaska, as they plan arrangements for
other terminally ill people to use their beachfront house
nearby as an end-of-life resort, where they can spend their
last moments with their families. Since the pandemic, the
Howes have immersed themselves in death-doula work,
helping others reach the same sense of peace.
“It’s almost like we’ve taken a master’s class in death,”
Greg says.
Death wasn’t always so industrialized. More than a century
ago, before there were coroners and funeral directors, it was
normal for families and communities to take care of the de-
ceased, according to Nukhet Varlik, a Rutgers University pro-
fessor who specializes in the history of pandemics. Hospice
care wasn’t introduced in the U.S. until the early 1970s, though
people were still informally taking on the role of death doula.
“Death used to be revered as a sacred part of life’s journey, and
we’ve completely removed it from our awareness,” O’Brien
says. “In fact, we’re doing everything to run the other way.”
Death doulas today are trying to change that. In January
2021, when a dying man in frigid northern Michigan said
he wanted to be back on a beach but was too sick to leave
his house, Shook dipped his hand in a bowl she’d filled with
sand. She lit citrus-scented candles around him and brought
in a sunlamp to warm his body as the sound of ocean waves
crashed out of speakers in the background.
A month later, when Shook realized a dying woman
who loved lilacs would not live long enough to watch
them bloom again in her yard, she burned lilac candles in
the woman’s room, hung large photos of the purple plants
on her walls, and massaged her hands and feet with lilac-
scented oils.
“Death doesn’t have to be this medical event,” Shook says.
“There’s a lot of beauty.” □‘I can’t stop people from
dying. All I can do is be
there to support them.’
—SARA WEB, DEATH DOULA