Love Doesn’t End: Understanding Grief with a Death Doula

This week Jess sits down with a guest whose story leaves a lasting impression. Margaret Anderson shares the deeply personal journey that led her to the work she does today—helping others through grief, loss, and the emotional process surrounding death.

Margaret’s story begins with unimaginable loss after the passing of her son. In the midst of her own grief, she began to see how powerful meaningful support can be during life’s most difficult moments. That realization led her to begin working in hospital transportation services, where she spent nearly ten years helping patients and families during vulnerable times. Through that work, she witnessed firsthand how important compassion, presence, and understanding can be when people are facing the unknown.

Eventually Margaret felt called to support others in a deeper way. She enrolled in a course that would change her life and became a death doula, someone who helps individuals and families emotionally and spiritually prepare for the end-of-life journey. Today she also works as a grief educator, guiding caregivers and families through the complicated emotions that come with loss.

During the conversation, Margaret explains that grief is not something to “fix,” but something to move through. Her work focuses on helping people process emotions, find closure, and create space for the conversations that often go unspoken. She shares stories of clients learning to say the things that matter most—expressing love, forgiveness, gratitude, and goodbyes that bring peace to both sides.

Margaret also reminds listeners that while death is something many people avoid talking about, it is a natural part of life. By acknowledging it openly, families can reduce fear, strengthen connections, and allow healing to begin. Her message is simple but powerful: grief work helps people realize that love does not disappear with loss—it simply changes form.

This moving episode invites listeners to look at grief through a different lens and offers a compassionate reminder that even in life’s hardest moments, support, understanding, and connection can make all the difference.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Local Legends with Jess, the Arizona Edition. I'm Jessica Benevento, your mortgage matchmaker, opening doors with ease and bringing you the stories behind Arizona's most inspiring people. From best-selling authors and elite athletes to business badasses making moves across the valley. These are the local legends shaping our communities. Get the inside scoop, real talk, and powerful conversations you won't hear anywhere else. Local Legends with Jess, where Arizona's stories connect. Welcome to Local Legends with me, Jess, and I am here with such a special guest. Margaret, you are my local legend today. Thank you. And the reason I brought you on here is because you're in my networking group connecting with connectors on Wednesdays. And yesterday, literally yesterday, you for the first time kind of told your story. And I'm like, oh hell, hell yeah. I need to have her on because I think that's a lot of what I find just amazing about people. And that's why I'm connected to so many people is that, you know, not just what they do for work, but their story. Because there's a reason why we're doing what we're doing. And there's a reason why I deem my people local legends. And you are a local legend. So thank you for being here. Thank you for inviting me. Um, I know it was short notice, but as you're talking, I'm like, oh my God, I could picture her on here. Oh my God, I'm gonna ask her. I hope she says yes. This was going through my head. So can you tell your story?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yes. So what I do is very unusual. And when I tell people off the bat what it is, they're like, oh, okay. And that's it. So yesterday I decided to tell the story. Um, I had a 23-year-old son that was killed in a motorcycle accident 21 years ago. And at the time I had no one in my life who had lost a child. I had one very good friend. He had lost his son a couple of years before that, no one else. And as I tell my story about my son, people start coming out of the woodwork. I've lost a child too. I've lost a child. And I realized that um connecting with other people, kind of walking the journey together is kind of what we needed to do. So spent a lot of years helping bereaved parents, like being there for them, supporting them, that kind of thing. Um, one of those bereaved parents was a dad, and he was CEO of this is crazy, an air medical flight transportation company. Okay. And if you don't know what that is, it's um the yellow and black helicopters you see going from hospital to hospital, but it's also um medically equipped learjets with a medical team, and you get a patient from point A to point B, either it's a higher level of care, specialized level of care, or sometimes it's end of life. You know, your mom and dad moved out to Arizona, retired. Now something happened to dad and he's passed, and you want to get your mom back to Chicago or whatever. That's kind of what you do. And I did this for many years. I ran their transfer center, and that's coordinating um hospitals, doctors, ambulances, transfer centers, insurance companies. Most important aspect of that was the family and this patient. They're going through this crisis. Yeah. And um, that's why he asked me to come on board. He said, I think you'll be really good helping these families that other stuff you can learn. So I did that for about 10 years, and I had a reputation of getting a flight a day. So this was thousands of families that I had been helping. Wow. Crazy. And I'll write a book one day, making sure I'm um not violating HIPAA, but the craziest transports and the craziest of circumstances. And every single day, this is what I do. So um, cut two. I get to a point in my life a couple of years ago. I'm getting into my 60s, and I think I love doing this, but it's a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job. And it's tiring. So this is on call. You're on call, basically. On call all the time and international flights. So even if the I put the flight in the air, I still have to track it and customs and all that kind of stuff. 24-7. Wow. So I think I have to do something different, something that'll last me until I'm 80. And I thought maybe I'll take the grief support a one step further. And I looked into grief courses, seminars, whatever. Because I thought I knew a lot about grief. So of course, what can somebody teach me? And I settled on a program um that's run by David Kessler. And David Kessler uh collaborated with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in a couple of her books. He's known all over the world as a grief expert. Uh, he's very knowledgeable and um such a great guy in uh in real life. So I decided to sign up for the course. But you sign up and wait. He doesn't do them regularly, just when he decides to have the course. And while I was waiting, a another another course came up to be a death doula. Now, I had had a birth doula with my last child and I loved her. Right. And I thought, well, is that the same thing, but on the way out instead of on the way in? Yeah. So I looked into it and I decided, you know, couldn't hurt. Maybe I can use the grief work to help people, you know, after they've lost someone. And I became a death doula. And then I take the grief course and I realize that they're going hand in hand. Of course. When someone calls me to help them, their mom or dad is end of life. Primarily, my clients are adult children taking care of their elderly parents. And it doesn't have to be, oh my God, my dad's in hospice. It can be, I know they're coming to the end of their life. And I need to settle my feelings and work through what's going to happen after they're gone, especially if you're real close to a parent. So the majority of my clients are adult children. So I realize that the grief work helps with anticipatory grief. And also one of the things I do with my clients is I want you to be good on the other side. Yeah. I want you to have said everything you need to say, um, um shared everything you need to share. You work through this experience, you and your parent. Don't worry about your siblings, so that you are good on the other side and you know that love is still there and your mom or dad is still with you. Let's let's that's like the journey that I take. So they just kind of evolved from all of this experience doing air medical and the grief work. And so that's what I do. I'm a death duel and grief educator.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

So I was give me your last last client that called you up. What is that? What what did that look like?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Um Well, I'm working with um, I'm gonna give you two examples. So one of uh uh one of my clients I'm working with is the power of uh is the caregiver for her dad. He lives here in Phoenix. So does she. But the power of attorney is her brother who lives in Chicago. She goes to all the appointments with her dad. She's here, goes and picks him up for lunch once a week. She's the one who's here. Right. When his appointments come up, guess who flies in? The brother. Doctor's talking to her, talking to him, because he's a power of attorney. And what about this? And what about that? And the brother looks over at her and she's getting a little resentful, right? Yeah. And resenting now spending time with her dad. Like, I'm here. He's not. Why am I back burner? So I have been helping her work through those feelings. So, what is going on with your brother? Who knows? Who cares why he's power of attorney? But let's work through your feelings so that when your dad passes, you're good on the other side. A lot of siblings don't even talk to each other after their parents, both their parents are gone. Right. So you don't even know if you're gonna have a relationship with him. Don't worry about him. Yeah. Let's work on your relationship with your dad and what you think his dad is his death is gonna look like and which where you want to be on the other side. So that's one, that's one of my specialties is family dynamics. Okay. The other one, um, I have three sons. Um, they're taking care of an elderly mom. She's at the end of her life. She's even doing the seeing her dead husband and you know, the whole thing. She's really close. And they call me and say, We think mom's at the end of life. And I said, Okay, I'll I'll come sit with you guys. Well, mom's resting. Okay. So I have a three-hour conversation with the brothers. What tell me what you're feeling? Let's talk about this. Yeah. You know, did you get to say everything you got to say? Are you hanging on to something? Are there any regrets? Whatever. Let's get it all out. So I became a touchstone for them as they worked through it. And uh, the mom was actually staying with one of the sons, and let's she was close to death. Every day they were surprised she was still awake. And I'm like, well, she's holding on to something. And at some point she even said, I don't think God's gonna let me in heaven. So I said, Well, what religion are you? And was she religious? Yeah, and she's in her 80s, so if she was Catholic, I know she's carrying Catholic guilt. Yeah, I'm Catholic too, so I can say that. And I said, Let's get your priest in there and let her do a confession. Right. And priest came in, did a confession private, and then I said, and start maybe at night, start doing a prayer before dinner. Maybe get on YouTube and find someone who's doing the rosary and she can do her rosary every night. And that helped her ease into that eventual transition, and she did. Right. So it's figuring out what the client needs. Wow. Many times it's adult children, but sometimes it's the person who's transitioning as well. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Is she still alive? No. No, she passed at Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah. Yeah, but they're they're doing good. Yeah. Because they work through it all. Because death is not something we talk about. Right. Right. At all. At all. No.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Death and money were so like, don't talk about it because there's no emotion, really.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

There's no no emotion associated with money but your own hang-up. Right. No association association with death, but your own hang up. Yeah. So I have a friend, um, his name is Ken Ross. He runs the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation. He says he travels the world talking about death and dying. And the only place he can't talk about it is here. Really? It's the only place because we don't want to talk about death. Yeah. So if you have someone, family member, even maybe you have a sibling who's going through cancer, why be afraid of death? I know. When they're already afraid. Yeah. Talk about death. Talk about what it might look like. Talk about what your beliefs are. Maybe you believe that you'll have family members on the other side. Maybe you believe you'll come back as your favorite Doberman named Penny, the one who just won the dog show. She's beautiful, by the way. But um, yeah, we we talk about death. So are you good with death? Are you Well, I have a son that's transitioned. So I'm good with death. Yeah. And this is funny. You talk to a lot of moms and dads who have children that have transitioned. You ask them, Are you afraid of death? And they'll say, No, because I'll be with my child. So no, right. I'm not afraid of death. No.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Wow. So I have um, and the reason too, like when you first came to our group and said death doula, I'm like, oh my goodness. Like it was like I went home that day, I'm like, I this is a new one. Like I've never heard of that before. And um, I have two best friends that lost my best friend from childhood lost her sister suddenly a couple of years ago. And then a recent uh friend out here lost her son, um, like tragically. And I know they're still both searching for just it's like why, right? It's it's it's unexpected, it's it's scary, it's not supposed to happen, right? We're we we believe that, you know, you go when you're old and you know order of events. Yeah. So I think it's I I think those kind of deaths, and you could you could tell me, right? Those sudden deaths, like you, your son, I I mean, you said goodbye and he never came back. You know, that's not not supposed to happen that way. Like, how how do you how do you go through it? How do you make peace with it?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah. How did you make peace with it? Well, I will tell you, I made peace with it. I I came to a point where I recognized that just because my son died, our love didn't die. Okay. And I'm a firm believer in love having a almost a quantum energy. Okay. Okay. So if my son, the love we shared together as mom and son, by the way, he's my firstborn, so that's a special kind of love. Yeah, he made me a mom. Right. So if we shared that love here, why is it gone? Because he's no longer physically here. I feel as though his energy is always around me. Right. Not it's not a woo-woo thing, it's that I know that that love will never die. It's gonna be there forever. Yeah. So when I when that flip almost switch almost flipped, yeah, like, oh, he's here, my heart had so much peace.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Really?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

So when I talk to parents, I often will ask them, Do you feel as though your child's energy is around you? And I was like, oh my gosh, lights have been flashing, I've been seeing a hummingbird, whatever, whatever they they recognize as something from their child. I tell them that's what it is. It's that love energy. You go from physical energy and you transition, and now you're this pure love energy that never goes away. Right. So I feel my I feel my dad's with me, my mom's with me, um, I know my son is with me. I'm gonna tell you a really weird thing, you can please or not. Um, the passenger seat on my car, in in my car, will will go off telling me the person who's sitting there isn't wearing their seatbelt. No. Oh, it does. So let me tell you, it was just a horrific car accident in December. Right. And it used to do that, it would do it in my car. So when that car accident happened, I had to get two different rentals. The the notification would come up in those cars too. Stop. And now I'm in my new car and it's going off. I totally that's him. That it's him. And he's he's either telling me, mom, slow down, or I don't like the music you're playing. But I I feel like that that knowing is really healing to the heart. Yeah. And comforting and comforting. Wow. Even with so as a grief educator, I talk to people who've lost their spouses, right? Talk to people who've lost children, but I also talk to people who have lost jobs, who've lost relationships, who've lost friendships. Friendships is a big one because it's what's called ambiguous grief, where you can't go to your friend and say, Oh God, Sally, Sally doesn't want to be my friend anymore. Because you'll say, Let her go. She was mean to you anyway, but my heart is still hurting. Yeah. So I shut up about how sad I am about Sally. Just eat it. So there's so many different types of grief, but they all have the same thing in common is let's feel that feeling, recognize it, right, and work through it. Maybe it's fear, maybe it's anger, maybe it's regret, whatever it is. And we work through it.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

So, how do people get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_01 16:25

What's the best way?

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Well, um, my website is themonarchgroup.net. Okay. Um, I'm also known as Death Do La Margaret and Grief Coach Margaret, and you can reach me at any of those places. And um, what I do is I do a um complimentary consultation, talk to somebody on the phone, see if we're vibing. Yeah. And if they want to get together, we can meet by Zoom. I can meet them at the park, I can come to their home, whatever. I'm also a double Reiki master, so I use Reiki um in helping them calm their energy so that when we go into sessions, they're more receptive, they feel calmer, more grounded.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

I love that. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for you're amazing. And you did awesome. Yay! You're a local legend. Thank you again. Yes. Uh well, this is a wrap. And yeah, you have uh Margaret's information, monarchgroup.net. Margaret or monarchgroup.net. Yes. And that's how you can. Like the beautiful monarch. Yes. Yes. Love it. Okay. And again, going back real quick, you could do Zoom. So they don't have to necessarily be in Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yeah. And they also they also don't feel like I don't want to leave my house today. I'm having a little anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Until next time. Take care.