Shadowing End-of-Life Doulas

My sister and I were present at my Father’s passing, which took place at our family home. My Dad was very unsettled for almost two days prior, not being able to sleep, not even closing his eyes due to anxiety his body felt. In the final moments, with huge efforts, he was trying to catch his last breaths. When my sister started repeating with care “calmly”, I joined her immediately. Our father became reassured right away—trusting us, recognizing something familiar in this very unfamiliar experience of transition into unknown.

To process the shock of witnessing a loved person’s passing took me time. My emotional struggle around this experience has brought my attention to humans who decide to professionally accompany terminally ill patients, wanting to assist them emotionally, spiritually, physically and practically to undergo the preparations to face their end of Life. I connected closely with fourteen end-of-life Doulas (coming from the States, Mexico, Switzerland and Ireland) to process our relationship with mortality. Through shadowing those end-of-life Doulas I relived my Father’s last days and passing, trying to understand the place of death in the scope of things, as well as processing the labor of death for a collapsing body and grief for everyone who is involved or witnessing.

End-of-life Doulas bring someone comfort up to their last stage, and guide them to be less afraid, removing the emotional distance that is felt by a lot of patients, as well as their feeling of abandonment. If there is enough time, End-of-Life Doulas help reflect the patient on relationships and matters that need closure.

One might think Death Doulas accompany the patient in a process of graceful dying, but what I heard from them - it is a well anticipated breakthrough for the patient not to behave gracious while confronting his mortality coming up.

Bringing images that psychologically and physically enter taboos, stigmas and traumas in our current culture, I process experiences that most of us will have to face at some point : a loss of a loved one, and an anxiety of a self to enter the ultimate unknown.

How do certified end-of-life Doulas look at the process of dying? What can one take from it?

This project was funded as a Hillman Foundation Award by International Center of Photography. Due to the privacy of the subjects not all photographs from the project are online.