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.
Episodes
65 episodes
You Are Not Alone In Grief
I thank you for coming here and making this space a part of your grief journey. Grief can be loud, or it can be eerily quiet. Either way, it can convince you that you are on your own. I recorded this message for you to hea...
Grief Asking For Attention
Grief has a way of making us disappear from ourselves. In this episode, we discuss how we stay busy, stay quiet, keep it moving, and hope time will do the work we refuse to touch. But when nobody talks about grief, we often...
Rest Is Part Of Grieving
In this episode, we discuss how your body can only carry grief for so long before it starts sending louder signals. We talk honestly about what it feels like when you’ve been pushing through loss for weeks, month...
Holding Space For Mother’s Day Grief
Mother’s Day lands differently when your mom is gone or when motherhood has been shaped by loss. This episode follows Morher’s Day weekend here in the U.S. and I wanted to honor the place a mother has in our lives. And, to let the ...
Grieving More Than a Death
This episode comes from the thick envelope from a lawyer that lands in my mailbox and flips my whole day upside down. Inside is news I never expected to learn this way: my aunt has died, and I don’t even know when it happened.
Normalizing Death Helps Children
In today’s episode we talk again about children and grief. We discuss how important it is for children to see death as a natural part of life. They need to be part of conversations and hear adults talking. If talking about death aro...
Children And Grief
I’m sitting in a park in my hometown, gently swinging while we talk about something most families stumble through: children and grief. When a divorce hits, a loved one dies, a pet dies, or life changes in the way it can, children are often the ...
When Grief Hits I’m Here
In this episode, I talk honestly about the days when I’m grieving in more than one way, when words are nonexistent, and when grief whispers, “stay in bed”. If you’re coping with loss right now, I want you to feel seen and supported....
Grief For Those You Did Not Know
Some grief doesn’t get “approved” by the people around you. It shows up when someone says you didn’t know them, didn’t have them long enough, or shouldn’t still be thinking about it. I share a personal, tender look at that kind of i...
Grief Mind, The Call You Can’t Make
Your hand reaches for the phone before your brain catches up. For a split second, it feels perfectly natural to call your dad, your mom, your person and then reality hits, and the grief rushes in.I share a moment that happened to me thi...
What If Silence Is The Real Mistake
In this episode, we talk about why so many of us hesitate to reach out after someone grieves the death of a loved one and how that silence can grow when weeks turn into months. Frances makes the case that it is not too late, that yo...
When Grief On The Page Feels Too Real
In this episode, I discuss how a book can be something we look forward to until it suddenly feels like a mirror. I sit down ready to gather grief resources and instead I’m stopped cold by a story that’s too close to home. With my brother-...
Grief and a Birthday
A birthday can be a celebration and a gut punch at the same time, especially when it arrives only weeks after a funeral. Today I’m holding space for my brother in law’s family and anyone staring down a hard date: your loved one’s bi...
Grace In Grief: Choosing Rest, Choosing Connection
Ever have a day where your heart says not tonight and the world keeps asking anyway? We start right there—at the honest edge of not wanting to show up—and talk about how grief reshapes energy, attention, and appetite for connection. Frances, th...
When Grief Knocks You Sideways
Grief doesn’t ask if you’re ready. It arrives and sometimes it knocks you flat. In this episode, I open up about the death of my brother‑in‑law and how the shock unsettled not just my thoughts but my body, even with years of trainin...
Fifty Episodes, Zero Rules For Grief
Plans unraveled, but the heart of our work held steady. We set out to share the origin story behind “the caring death doula” for a milestone 50th episode and ran into tech roadblocks—so we did what grief teaches best: we stayed present. This co...
Why “I’m Sorry For Your Loss” Still Matters
In this episode, Frances, The Caring Death Doula, pushes back on grief-shaming and makes the case that a simple “I’m sorry for your loss” is better than nothing.Frances shares how to move from polite words to real presence, and how to in...
The Numbness of Grief
In this episode, your host, Frances, shares raw moments after two funerals and the quiet that followed. She names the numbness of early grief and the strength in saying “I’m not okay.” She offers encouragement to rest or to re...
Grief of Two Funerals in Four Days
Grief doesn’t follow rules, and it may sometimes not even arrive one loss at a time. This week, your host, Frances, shares a raw, intimate account of attending two funerals in four days while holding the quieter ache of a father who...
Holding Space for Grief
Grief doesn’t wait for the calendar to clear, and it rarely gives a warning. After an unexpected death in our family, we sit with the shock, the numbness, and the way priorities snap into focus. In this episode Frances discusses wha...
Grief In Real Time
In this episode, we move through a week of shock after a sudden family death, a second funeral in town, and the strange mix of a full house and private numbness. We explore how small rituals, better listening, and humane workplaces can hold gri...
Raw Numbing Grief
The phone rings, life splits, and the air goes thin. A moment you won’t forget. That’s the feeling we step into in this episode: raw, sudden grief after an unexpected death in the family, the kind that makes time wobble and or...
Are We Ever Prepared for Grief
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 quie...
Gentle Joy in Grief
Grief can feel endless until, suddenly, it doesn’t—for a moment.In this episode I share a tender look at how relief sometimes arrives unannounced: a letter from a transplant recipient whose life was saved, a beloved house passing to some...
Grief can’t be scheduled or planned
In this episode I ask whether grief feels heavier during the week or on the weekend, then unpack why sorrow refuses schedules. A planned Monday–Thursday structure gives way to presence, flexibility, and care after life delivers unexpected...