In my deathcare practice, I work with anyone seeking to develop their own personal and intuitive approaches to finding meaning, comfort, and connection through times of transformation and loss. Drawing on many years of direct experience and continuing education around death and bereavement, of writing through and about my own traumatic grief, and of supporting other writers and artists in giving form to challenging and complex experiences, I see my role as companioning clients through both the material and the more-than-material dimensions of the deathspace with a special attention to its aesthetics—in the richest and deepest sense of that word. How can we make this as beautiful and bearable as possible, I’ll gently guide us through asking, while never denying the obliterating realities and frequent injustices of loss?
With training through Douglas College’s End-of-Life Doula program and certification as a deathcare guide through The Centre for Sacred Deathcare, I offer my presence and knowledge alongside, not in place of, medical or psychotherapeutic diagnosis and treatment. During a session, I provide compassionate and active listening to a person’s story, wherever they are in it, plus imagination, language, and tools for slowing down and tending to the fullest available truth of what they’re experiencing. Our work together might involve any of the following:
revisiting a human or pet death that feels difficult to know how to grieve or memorialize;
navigating the practical, existential, and/or spiritual implications of a life-limiting or otherwise destabilizing diagnosis;
preparing for an expected loss in the context of abortion, MAiD, or animal euthanasia;
completing life reviews and shaping end-of-life legacy projects;
designing rituals, ceremonies, objects, and written texts for funerals, anniversaries, or other threshold events;
bringing one’s existing art, writing, or other expressive practices into closer relationship with one’s grieving practices;
validating and exploring the kinds of non-ordinary or mystical experiences that are frequently reported in scenarios of death and grieving.
Visit my deathcare FAQ page to learn more about my approaches and background, or click here to book a session or a free 15-minute introductory call.
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And how much may we omit without not telling the truth? Depending on how slow we go. Going as fast as if everything were being omitted, nothing may be omitted without not telling the truth. Going as slow as if nothing were being omitted, everything may be omitted without not telling the truth. Gently omitting, though gently. —Laura Riding