When Leslie listened to a podcast that discussed the role of a death doula she was intrigued. She was accustomed to the ins and outs of establishing an estate plan, but the work of a death doula was completely foreign. Is the concept new to you?
The Besties tuned in to a recent episode of Dr Joy Harden Bradford’s Therapy for Black Girls podcast and they learned about Alua Arthur and the company she founded Going With Grace. Ms Arthur is a Death Doula, a practitioner who honors the closing chapter of our lives by handling things that most people don't even realize (or pretend not to know)) is necessary.
Beyond having a will or an Advanced Directive, do your loved ones know your passwords to unlock your digital lives? A Death Doula guides you through a journey that goes beyond the clinical, delving into cultural legacies and weaving a narrative that respects our final days while eliminating many of the burdens faced by surviving family members.
Navigating the waters of end-of-life planning can be daunting, yet it's a journey we must all prepare for. A death doula may be your most lasting gift in death that you give to the living.
Visit Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn website for behind-the-scenes extras.
When Leslie listened to a podcast that discussed the role of a death doula she was intrigued. She was accustomed to the ins and outs of establishing an estate plan, but the work of a death doula was completely foreign. Is the concept new to you?
The Besties tuned in to a recent episode of Dr Joy Harden Bradford’s Therapy for Black Girls podcast and they learned about Alua Arthur and the company she founded Going With Grace. Ms Arthur is a Death Doula, a practitioner who honors the closing chapter of our lives by handling things that most people don't even realize (or pretend not to know)) is necessary.
Beyond having a will or an Advanced Directive, do your loved ones know your passwords to unlock your digital lives? A Death Doula guides you through a journey that goes beyond the clinical, delving into cultural legacies and weaving a narrative that respects our final days while eliminating many of the burdens faced by surviving family members.
Navigating the waters of end-of-life planning can be daunting, yet it's a journey we must all prepare for. A death doula may be your most lasting gift in death that you give to the living.
Visit Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn website for behind-the-scenes extras.
Hey Ange, hey Les what's cooking.
Speaker 2:All good in this hood.
Speaker 1:All good in my new hood. In my hood it's so good, it's so good, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Today's a good day. I'm going to jump right into our podcast, so I'll start by saying welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn, brooklyn. I feel compelled to say this is the Invisalign edition, because I have my teeth in and I feel myself slurring already. I don't want to take them out to speak already. I don't want to take them out to speak, so I'm just putting it out there.
Speaker 1:I don't have this much of a lisp. Normally she does have a little one, but not this much. That's hilarious. So how much longer?
Speaker 2:I think maybe it's. I'm only about a month and a half in. So, oh, okay, okay, you know in other words, it'll be longer than they say it probably.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, but I see a difference. Already You're on the journey.
Speaker 2:You're on the journey. I asked them not to close the gap in the front of my teeth and it looks like the gap is closing. People don't listen you need to say something.
Speaker 1:People don't listen. People don't listen to what you know. The gap is closing, but I like the way it looks.
Speaker 2:I like it, you need.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying I need to say something.
Speaker 2:I need to say something. That's a part of your heritage.
Speaker 1:You need to say something. You need to say something that is it's it's very much a part of your African ancestry. So you need to say something that is it's very much a part of your African ancestry. So you need to say something.
Speaker 2:Alright, I'll look again and re-evaluate that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, alright, listen, this is going to be a doozy.
Speaker 2:I know, and it is so right up my alley, that people are going to think I'm weird, but by the end of this episode. Now they're going to think I'm weird, but by the end of this episode. Now they're going to by the end of this episode. They're going to get me, they're going to feel me.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:So I had occasion to listen to a podcast that it's like we got to talk about this and we got to talk about this Ang. We got to talk about this Ang. What were you going to say?
Speaker 1:Because I may not stop talking once I start.
Speaker 1:Nothing new as well. I was going to say that I also. Well, I listened to some of it, but as soon as you sent me the email and I read the summary, I'm like this is so Leslie's thing, and so it's. I'm looking forward to this because, number one, it's so freaking important. Number two, because we have so much experience in this you in terms of doing the right thing, me in terms of my experiences not having done the right thing and I think it's really going to help people to get in gear, including myself, because it's you know, come on, let's go Come on, let's go.
Speaker 2:All right, not too many more shopping.
Speaker 1:Come on, let's go.
Speaker 2:All right, not too many more shopping days till Christmas.
Speaker 1:Not too many.
Speaker 2:In the words of that sage, monique. So I listen to a podcast and I get correspondence from them. It's called Therapy for Black Girls. You might have introduced me to that some years ago, when.
Speaker 1:I was looking for a therapist. I thank you for giving me my props for that, because I am indeed the one who connects, and it's not just for black girls.
Speaker 2:It's not for dudes as well, but anyway. So it's run by a psychologist in Atlanta, dr Joy Harden Bradford, and I listened to her most recent podcast episode and a light went off. She was featuring a lady that titles herself a death doula. Amazing, you're like what? Now, first of all, I'm familiar with labor and delivery doulas that support people in and around their pregnancies and deliveries, but I've never heard of the term a death doula. In fact, I kind of bristled at the term initially, because what More on that later. I think it has a connotation of morbidity for sure, mortality, certain death.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I, like so many people, when I hear the word death, it just sets up a whole constellation of ideas okay so let me just, I thought you I thought you would bristle at it, because you have experience with doulas and we generally understand doulas to be people who support new life, and so you bristled at the idea of how can it be a doula?
Speaker 2:What the heck yeah.
Speaker 1:But it wasn't that.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that I think in my humanness and as a normal person, I also feel some kind of way when I think about death and end of life. So in that regard, but I just want to talk a little bit about my experiences with death, want to talk a little bit about my experiences with death personally. I have mentioned probably many times that I grew up in a house with five generations in one home. So I was fortunate and blessed to grow up with great grandparents. Well into my mid-twenties, I believe my grandmother, my great-grandmother, died. I'll use the word I started to say pass away, died. I was 26 at the time. Nana Margaret lived in our home. We cared for her and I was able to witness the end of many of my relatives' life witnessed the end of many of my relatives' life.
Speaker 2:And then, when I went to medical school, I had the occasion to see patients at the end of their lives and interact with their families and I felt a certain kinship and connection to them unusually so for a medical student and I wondered what that was. And I remember two particular incidents, where one was a very young man who died in a car accident he must've been 19. I've told you about that story. And another was an older person but I forced myself to stay in the patient's room and the family's room after they died and I remember forcing myself to stay silent and let them process it and grieve in that way, and I was proud of myself. I remembered how difficult it was not to say anything or try to console them immediately or offer a medical explanation, but to let them lead the session.
Speaker 1:That was impactful for me.
Speaker 2:Well one. When these things happen, the physicians often leave because of the finality of it all. They may pronounce the patient and express their you know, I'm sorry for your loss and then they leave because, quite honestly, we have other things to do. We may have paperwork to do or whatever. And in the case of the 19-year-old young man, my son, I don't think was that old at the time, but you know, I connected, you know, with them. As a parent, I knew what it must feel like to lose your child. Who would know that? In that very same hospital, I would almost have that very same experience in the emergency room, almost losing my child after Omari had his car accident. Same exact hospital, same exact ER, same physician staff. But anyway, but I made that connection and then I felt that, as a medical student, we often have the jobs of doing things that the physicians, you know, don't do, and I didn't want to leave the parents in the room by themselves, so I stayed in there.
Speaker 1:Wow, oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:Anyway.
Speaker 1:Man my goodness.
Speaker 2:Anyway, man, it could just take me right back there. So anyway, that experience really throughout the rest of my medical ethics around patients at the end of their life, so how to best support families at that time, and then what I termed a good death. So I um volunteered to be on committees while I was in medical school and residency and um take more courses and read more about it and things like that. So that's my history, um with um, with my interest in it. So now fast forward a couple more years and it has been my role over the years with all of my family members and friends, and we've talked about this with the podcast that I talk to people about what end of life planning looks like. Yeah, and we even had our friend called Chen, the estate planning attorney, do two episodes on our podcast previously. We can link them so people can remember.
Speaker 2:But the legal part of it and the legacies that you can leave for your families and wills and advanced directives what would you want to happen on your last days or when you cannot no longer make decisions for yourself? So I had not realized how impactful my conversations with my father over the years had been, because when he passed well. He became cognitively impaired from a stroke first, so was unable to make decisions for himself. Several years before he died. I didn't even know, but I received a packet in the mail from an estate planning attorney's office that dad had made me power of attorney, completed his will, did all these things. I got to tell you as difficult as it could have been, his passing and death and planning his estate was perfectly planned. It made my and my brother and sister's lives so much easier, him having put those things in place.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm like yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, I got to tell everybody what success in this arena looks like, right? So you know I talk about that a lot. We had to call on because it's important and stuff. Most of us do not have these things in place. Right, because it's important and stuff, most of us do not have these things in place.
Speaker 2:The first thing that I hear most commonly when I speak about it, even with my husband, you know, I'm like are you sure you have this? Or whatever you know, do you have let's talk about? He'll say it's Sunday. Why do you want to talk about that? Or I don't want to talk about this right now. Can we do this another time? And then I become a nag and it seems like I'm not waiting for him to die. But it's a similar conversation I have with my mother. What I'm thinking about is that at the end of a person's life, when family is surrounded and gathering in grief, the last thing we want to do is look for paperwork is clear out, a home is sort through important papers, looking for things that you can't find and trying to settle financial matters and things like that. I think taking care of these things ahead of time is a gift that you give to your loved ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I so many things, so many things that came to mind. I remember it was way before your father died, way before I think maybe you were still in medical school or shortly after, where you told me the role that I was going to have. You sent me all the paperwork.
Speaker 2:I know exactly where it is.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was tied with a bow.
Speaker 2:I made you my health care proxy you and my sister and remember that Ernest had big problems with that. He's a physician, he's my husband, et cetera. But the thing that I realized early on with Ernest is that he and I think differently about you. Know what to do when your heart stops or you know cold status and different things like that and people don't realize.
Speaker 2:My husband loves me, I know that. But when I say I don't want any extraordinary, I don't want to be on a ventilator, on machines, I know that he would not be able to honor my wishes. And people don't realize that when you are in that role as a proxy, you are the voice of the person. It is not your own voice. So I knew early on that Ernest would not, in his own consciousness, be able to respect the wishes that I would want for myself and that's why I named people other than him.
Speaker 1:But he was upset about it.
Speaker 2:You know, it was created a rift, whereas he would want to be on a ventilator or, let's say, or artificial support, until he crumbled in the hospital bed, until he touched him and he was desiccated until he touched him and he was desiccated and he would be ashes to ashes before while the machine is still beeping, and I did tell him that if that's what you want, my dear, I could do that for you, you know so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, oh my gosh, I. So I listened to the podcast as well, and so many things.
Speaker 2:Right, we didn't even get into the that. That content as yet.
Speaker 1:Well it's. It's kind of like one of the reasons why I'm like, les, we have to. We have to do a recording on this, because I know that you had some particular experiences and mine were quite different. I don't have all of these things done. I saw the experience my father.
Speaker 1:He had pretty much disconnected from a lot of our societal norms in terms of keeping track of all of that stuff long ago so, but my mother, I think it maybe it was just because of growing up not in a place or where there were societal norms around planning for death. You know, cuba, jamaica and then coming here, my mother was a very practical person. She took care of things. You know, always kind of had money set aside if we needed to take a trip to Jamaica, especially while my grandparents were alive, because you know, at any point when they got sick we would all go. So she was very practical in terms of those things.
Speaker 1:But I think there were just some things that she just didn't know. And then when she went into cognitive decline with dementia, my sister did put some things in place. And we needed to put some things in place because eventually she went into a home, a care facility, and so we needed to have those things in order to advocate for her. But to this day my mother has money in a bank account that I have not been able to get access to.
Speaker 1:She wasn't kind of an online person. You know that I think she died before it really got. You know that that was kind of the way of life, but I know that there's so much that I need to do for my children. Some years ago, if you remember, I had a head talk. I used to have these courageous conversations in my home. Head was an acronym Highlighting and embracing. Highlight, embrace and something diversity was the acronym for Head Talks, anyway, and I had someone come in to talk who worked in a healthcare facility to talk about death and dying and what really struck me is that you do these things not for you. Really struck me is that you do these things not for you. You're gone, you've died, you are wherever your faith is going to take you. That's where you are and your family is left with what's left of you. Your family, including your body, but also all of your history, is left with your family.
Speaker 1:For me it would be young, you know adult children, but you know, still in their 20s. And it's for them, it's for them.
Speaker 1:And it's a matter of prioritizing, but I really need help to get over. I've done things up to a point and then I allowed something to stop me right when they were younger. It was because, oh, I didn't know how I was going to handle um isaiah, because he was, he's, five years younger than um, my middle son, and I got stuck in thinking about how their father, who's not really involved in their lives, how I would manage their father's involvement if I died when he was a minor, and so things like that along the way just have kind of crippled me in terms of taking action. I mean, I've cataloged things, I got a book where I listed everything out when did you get the book from?
Speaker 1:I haven't Leslie, because this is who she is. I distributed them to all my buds, yes, and I. You know, in packing I came across it again. I'm like, oh my God, I got to update this Me too, my this it's been so long. So, anyway, we both we've had very different experiences with this, these systems that we have to put in place, and so when I listen to the podcast about a deaf doula, I'm like what a blessing she is to those families who bring her on board.
Speaker 2:So now I'll bring up the fact that I love the fact that she used the word death, not end of life. Doula, not your final doula. I think we need to destigmatize that word. I think we need to destigmatize that word. Yeah, I think the more that we use it, the better. The less it will sting, the less that we will bristle about it. It would be like it I would love it to become any other word, because what she does she not only supports. Who is she? Well, yes, I was going to say who is she? Alua Arthur. Her first name is A-L-U-A. She is the founder of a company called Going With Grace and she recently published a memoir called Briefly Perfect Human. She has training as an attorney and she had an encounter with a woman who was terminally ill and in their conversations she came back from the trip and determined that her life was not the way that she wanted it to be and really started thinking about forming this business that she now runs and the need for it.
Speaker 1:Can I say one thing, Liz?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll forget so one thing that really hit me as I was listening to her journey and getting here is um, and so she mentioned that one of the reasons why she left the legal profession is because she had pretty severe depression and she left and went on this journey to Cuba, and that's where she met this person, and at some point she talked about the fact that getting involved in this death work and helping people through and getting to having a sense of almost respect for death and the person who was in the process of dying it addressed it helped her with her depression. She said that she will always have it. It's not like it went away, and so it made me start thinking about joy in the midst of and you know, when I talk about joy, it is not. We're not talking about happy. That is not what I mean when I talk about joy.
Speaker 1:I talk about fulfillment and satisfaction and having a sense of it's more deep-seated. It's much more deep-seated right and I really thought about man. How much more deep seated right, and I really thought about man.
Speaker 2:How much more joy would we have knowing that these things are in place for our life when we go this could be a real source of joy and for me and, yeah, it does not have to be a morbid, dark thought that she doesn't work only with people who are at the end of their life, at end stage. It's a continuum of support. And what things do you need to get in place? I remember I recently printed out with Facebook not Facebook, apple calls their legacy key. It's like a 35 digit password per se so that a loved one or another person can access your Apple ID. There's a whole lot of information that could be lost when you pass away and people don't know your passwords or this or that. Who could? I don't even know my password, let alone someone else.
Speaker 2:So it's these types of things that, in her work, ms Arthur has put together this company that can navigate and steer people, even to consider the things that you need to consider. Do they have a digital online presence? What about all of their financial accounts and insurance policies? Are there any other legal things that need to be taken care of, to be put in place to make a transition easy? She even mentioned that when her brother-in-law died, they wanted to give his car to their nephew and they ran into so many obstacles just to transfer a title, you know, because it had to go into the estate first and then sit in probate or this or that, and I was remembering how easy it was for me to give my father's car away, although I remembered that I donated his car to cars for kids or something like that before he passed. So that's why I bypassed the step of including it in his estate. But there are so many things that you don't even need to think about because someone else has done that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. So it's not. I don't look at it as death planning per se, but it's life planning and helping with decision-making for things that we don't need to think about because you'll miss something. But there are so many different steps. Like I said to my mom, I've asked her at least in the last 10 years can you start paring down your clothing, your artwork, your tchotchkes, your things? Start, you know, letting people know giving away pictures now. And you know, because when she passes, if she passes before me, I will not go through pockets looking for things of value and drawers. Go through pockets looking for things of value and drawers.
Speaker 2:There's 50 years of being in our family home of four floors. Say that five times with a line is in your mouth. With four floors and I could, my siblings and I, we could never go through everything. It's really going to be bundled up and discarded or given away in mass. We have no idea what could be lost. Right, you know right, and, and the time to think about it is when you have the energy and you're free from illness. You know time for us to think about me is now. You is now except you know, yeah, yeah, but someone like alua arthur with her company, could be very instrumental in supporting decision making and families. And she says she, um, she works with often whole people you know, the whole family you know, or individuals that want to give this what I call the ultimate gift to their loved ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah so interesting yeah, she described having a group of maybe 16 people in a family all filling out the paperwork and all. I mean that's how about that for a family vacation? That would be you know what I mean I could envision, could you imagine what the flyer looks like?
Speaker 2:Our keynote speaker for our family reunion, death doula. People will say like what the hell Leslie done? Gone mad. What kind of flyer Did you see? What I don't think.
Speaker 1:I'm going. You know, maybe a lot of what gets in the way for people too. I'm wondering if this is the case for me. No, this is not my issue. The things that they're ignoring, like how they're eating and whether they're exercising it, it forces them to actually take stock of that.
Speaker 2:Start thinking about mortality.
Speaker 2:Whether that yeah, but nobody leaves this earth without dying, we ain't going to get away. We're not going to escape it. We're not going to escape it. So how about we go on our own terms rather than the state's terms or your family's terms, who may not either know or be in agreement with your final wishes?
Speaker 2:I've had a lot of family loss recently. I lost a young cousin, 28 or nine years old, a couple weeks ago and he had a protracted illness, but toward the last month or so of his life he didn't want any visitors. He seemed like he was depressed and his grandmother my aunt, you know wanted to continue treatment and all. And I did remind her that we have to honor what it is that he wants for himself, not what we would want, because we would want to hold them close and keep them forever. Yeah, I had that conversation with our painful one, you know.
Speaker 2:And then more recently, about a week and a half ago, I lost a dear cousin who was a physician, another physician in the family, and she was Jehovah's Witness. Her sisters respected the fact that she did not want any funeral or any kind of public service with her passing and that we may do some type of life celebration at a later time for her. For Pinky, her sister did say that she was somewhat of a hoarder and collected a lot of stuff. There were patient charts and patients calling trying to make appointments. Still, oh my gosh, that her sisters not physicians had to deal with and close up the office and things like that, and I haven't checked in in a while. But I can only imagine in your grieving having to take care of a checklist of tasks.
Speaker 1:Right, right, you know Right, yeah, yeah. So okay, liz Got to do it, I know, I know.
Speaker 2:And this is not to be a depressing conversation.
Speaker 1:It's not a depressing thing.
Speaker 2:It gets depressing when, if I'm end stage and on my deathbed, that's when the depression you know might start. But if I'm talking to you now, hey, we can talk about it over a martini.
Speaker 1:But for me it's not a depressing thing. To me, this, this personally, this is not depressing. This is not a depressing topic. What gets in my way is the actual taking action. Okay, I got to get this stuff together. Okay, I have to hire this person or I have to. It's really carving out the time. It's almost like carving out the time to liquidate.
Speaker 2:I was thinking the same thing, because there's so many things in this regard that I need to do myself and update and this and that which I haven't done. I've acquired, I think, two convertibles since I've last done my film, two convertibles in a house that are not going to turn to dust. I'm going to take a little piece of a pen and just like jot it down, you know, oh and another thing, oh and another thing.
Speaker 1:So, before we go, you had mentioned I can't remember what the context was, but how talking to people and letting them know what your wishes are, that, that, yeah, and you know. You know I'm that guy.
Speaker 2:So, even if even if you don't put things in writing, which is the ideal way, and notarized and part of your estate plan, but the legal way, if you and right. But even if you talk to your family members and let them know what it is that you want. She's always said that she doesn't want to be buried, she'd want to be cremated. Even if that's not in your written down, you know your family members at least can know that. In the absence of paperwork, what if they can't find your paperwork? You know they know that. Listen. If they put your behind in the absence of paperwork, what if they can't find your paperwork? You know they know that. Listen, if they put your behind in the ground, it ain't what you want.
Speaker 2:They can do that if they want Sleepless nights and being haunted.
Speaker 1:Haunted brain I can't sleep the dumping game concept that's Leslie knocking on the casket that she never wanted to be in.
Speaker 2:What is that knocking? You know? Do that at your peril. So, yeah, by talking about it. The other thing, that talking about it it kind of it's like it um numbs the the. You know it neutralizes things. It kind of numbs the sting a little bit. Oh, she's always talking about that. Let's normalize these types of things, because it is normal to leave this for earth and death. We gotta know that. We gotta know that you know even Moses didn't live forever.
Speaker 2:how long did you know, like these folks, he didn't live forever. How long did you know, like these folks, he didn't even get to the promised land.
Speaker 1:He was like no, he just said it's up there, you guys keep going, keep going, go on without me, you know. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, okay, yes, ma'am, yes, thank you.
Speaker 2:That is my story for today. So you know, I guess we all have our marching orders and you know what? Let's hold each other accountable. You all hold your loved ones accountable. Has it been done? Did you do it? Maybe you can buy them a book or something to write things in. You know, when circumstances change, update it. But it's more than that. You know, you and I talked about that. There's some kind of composting. I know it sounds so weird.
Speaker 1:I told.
Speaker 2:Ernest this and he kind of. He kind of looked at me like what the hell is my wife talking about? Now you can compost your body. It is a service. We'll put that in. I wrote it down. Not many people do it these days, but it is some type of ceremony where you are put back into the earth from whence you came.
Speaker 1:No, it's a pod, it's a composting. Is that what you mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, your body is wrapped in organic material and you are put in a place where you naturally decompose and a beautiful tree blossoms on top of you and this and that, yeah, yeah, it's expensive and it's a process, but I don't know that it's more expensive. So is that wooden box Exactly?
Speaker 1:It is Exactly In comparison, I don't think it would be an issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's put money aside for that.
Speaker 1:I think on one of our vacations, les. We need to set aside Time and go look at the compost.
Speaker 2:My body is going to be right in there. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:I'm going to choose which tree.
Speaker 2:I want to be Okay.
Speaker 1:No, but just to get that. Get me started on this. I tried to do it once before, but then we just were having so good a time. I know, I know, but I really want to kind of do some of the basic, some of the basic, some of the basic things, and just yeah, yeah, all right Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm with you. Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn is produced by Angela Fraser, angela Fraser. Our editing team is from Matt Dershowitz and our marketing social media team is by Couture Copywriting. So this has been another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn.