The Caring Death Doula
In a world that rushes past death and ignores grief, The Caring Death Doula stops to listen with tenderness, truth, and time. Whether you are grieving right now or here to learn how to help those grieving, join your host, Frances, a certified grief educator on the journey of finding connection, conversations, and comfort. Let's make grief and death a natural part of our conversations.
The Caring Death Doula
Are We Ever Prepared for Grief
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A massive winter storm sets the stage for a conversation we’ve needed to have: you can plan, but you can’t schedule your heart. In this episode, I look at how grief behaves more like weather than a checklist—surprising, shifting, sometimes quiet, sometimes relentless—and why that doesn’t mean you failed to prepare.
I talk about loss in its many forms: the death of a loved one, the goodbye to a beloved pet, the end of a role after children grow, and the identity shock that can follow retirement.
From bedside vigils to last trips and legacy letters, I honor the ways families get ready, then admit the universal truth: the moment still pierces. Grief still hits, and it can surprise you.
Readiness is often a myth we use to feel safe. What helps instead is learning to carry love forward. Tears are not weakness; they are proof of value, attachment, and meaning. It’s okay to feel what arrives without apology. Your way of grieving may not be mine, and that’s the point. Grief is personal because love is personal.
If you’re standing in the doorway of a change you chose, or a loss you never wanted, you’re not walking it alone.
I’m here to witness, to name, and to remind you that you still matter, even on days when you feel like you don’t.
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The Caring Death Doula
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Hello, this is Francis the Caring Death Doula. Thank you for joining me today. In here in the United States, we are having a huge storm that's going to be hitting through probably about half our country, 2,000 mile stretch, and I don't know how many states are going to be affected. Below zero temperatures, snow, two or three feet of snow, ice. I mean, it's just really going to be a mess. And so, of course, as you do in any kind of forewarning that you can get for weather, everyone's preparing, everyone's purchasing food and other products, and just preparing the way you would, the way you would. And it really got me thinking as we're waiting for this weather to hit, is that grief is in all our lives, just as weather is. And grief comes at us from all different angles, all different situations. You know, it's not just from the death of a person. It can be the death of a pet, it can be loss of a dream, loss of a job. It can be the end of a role that you that you had. A role like raising your children for 18 years. Or it can be a process. It can be a journey where your loved one is dying and everyone knows it, and they're may or may not be suffering, but you're waiting. Because we don't know when we're going to die. And there's no way to prepare. You know, when you are a caregiver for someone who's bedridden and is dying, or even if you're just the friend or even a family member, and you don't have the main care of this person, of your loved one, and you think that you're ready. And maybe your parent or grandparent isn't even sick, but you know, you know, they're in their 90s, maybe they're a hundred, and you know at some point they're gonna die, and you think, oh, they lived a good life and a long life, and you think you're gonna be ready. You know, all these different circumstances, we think we're gonna be ready, and we're not. No matter how much you prepare, even if you get an end-of-life practitioner, a death doula, to come in and to help you to communicate amongst yourselves, amongst the family, do legacy projects, the loved one plans how they want their last days to be like, or their memory to be, you know, embodied, letters are written, you know, whatever you may do, you think you're ready. But grief is something that we can never be ready for. There are people that I've talked with, and I've they knew their loved one was dying. They did all the things, maybe they went on the last trip, they gathered the family in, they said their goodbyes, they, you know, they did whatever they thought was preparation. And then the death comes. And what they thought was going to be easy and quick and not an issue does become an issue. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's no, there's no shame in that. Death, the grief that comes from death of a loved one, or death because you're retiring, right? There's there's grief if you're retiring from your job. You may plan for it, you know it's coming. You may have plans on what you're gonna do with your time now that you're not getting up and going into the office or going into the classroom or whatever you're retiring from. And you just think you're gonna be fine because you prepared and you're ready and you're looking forward to it. And then grief hits. No matter what situation that your grief is coming at you from, no matter how much you've prepared, there's no shame. Don't be hard on yourself, don't guilt yourself if it's not as easy as you thought it was gonna be. There's time invested. And so grief is that carrying forward the love you had for your person, or the love that you had for your career, the passion you had, the passion you had for your work, the passion you had for your partner. It's all wrapped up in your grief. And so if it hits you differently, don't be gentle with yourself, don't beat yourself up. Be gentle and realize there was no way that you could truly prepare for this. Grief hits hard, it hits soft, it can stick around, it can disappear, it can come back. I just want you to know that I'm here for you. It may feel like you're walking this path alone, and it is a personal path. The way that you are traveling on it is not the same way I would. I carry my grief one way. What sues and comforts me is different than what sues and comforts you. How we carry our grief is different. But you're not alone. Yes, it's personal, yes, it's different. And I may not understand every single grief that's out there, but I do understand grief. I'm here for you. Your grief matters. Your tears don't hide them. Don't be ashamed of them. Your grief, those tears, they represent a love, a passion, a value. Whatever you're grieving, it has value. You have value, and you still matter. Whatever's coming ahead of you, you still matter. Don't ever forget that. Be gentle with yourself. This is the caring death, doula, and I am here for you.