Death Doulas Are Life Doulas

Good morning, everybody. Good morning.

So, yes, I’m a children’s television writer, and I’m a death doula.

I know those things may sound strange sitting next to each other. They sound strange to me sometimes, too.

But writing was always the goal.

I started writing stories when I was seven. I wrote a fairy tale about a seven-year-old little boy who ran away from home because his mom wouldn’t stop smoking cigarettes.

I still hate cigarettes. It was kind of autobiographical.

I stayed up all night working on that story. If there are any writers here, you know that feeling. You just have to get it out.

I woke up the next morning, left it on my bed, and went to school so proud of myself. I told all my friends, “Hey, I wrote this story about a kid running away, jumping on a train, going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere.”

They were excited. They said, “Bring it to school tomorrow.”

But when I got home, my parents were sitting there reading this letter, or what they thought was a letter. They looked at me and said, “Oh, we thought you ran away.”

They were about to call the police.

But all I could think was, damn, I must be that good.

So I honed those skills. And because of everything my pens have written, I’ve been able to travel the world as a storyteller, a poet, and a playwright.

Um, in fact, I was in Amsterdam when I got the call that I had been accepted into the Sesame Street Writers’ Room.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

It was great because, as a kid, I was one of those children who asked that age-old question: “Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?”

And I finally had the address.

It was great, but it was also strange because everything I had created before then had nothing to do with children, at least not directly.

I came from creating, producing, and directing socially conscious content that some people called heavy.

My first film was Seeking Asylum. It was a documentary about me trying to escape America.

My second was Outside the House, about Black mental health.

And my third was Set Yourself on Fire, about the global rape epidemic.

So, heavy, yes.

But I like to say that the work was about how society was failing us and how society could be positively transformed.

Then there was Sesame Street. It was New York. It was exciting.

And it was my chance to ask myself: How can I create better people?

I had long lived by the Frederick Douglass quote, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

So my first question in that writers’ room was: How can I create content that keeps kids from turning into the adults we’re so busy repairing?

It was a hard but necessary question, especially coming from work that had been so heavy. Sometimes it took me weeks to recover from an interview.

Now I was able to create work that was light. I was encouraging kids to get out there and play. I could inspire imagination, curiosity, and creativity in the minds of young children.

And it worked.

I left Sesame Street and went on to work on Blue’s Clues, if anyone knows that show.

Yay, Blue’s Clues. One of my favorite dogs.

I worked on Rubble & Crew, Nickelodeon’s Karma’s World, and some really amazing shows.

And I loved it. It gave me the chance to see that my work actually mattered.

So, I’m a death doula as well.

This part of my life kind of popped up in one of those wild moments I hope we all get to experience from time to time. And when I finally understood what it was, it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise.

At nine years old, I was helping my family navigate the loss of my great-aunt, Greta Mae, after lung cancer.

Again, I hate cigarettes.

At nine years old, I didn’t fully understand what death was. I had never really experienced it.

But every night, my mom would come home and give me updates.

Her final update was that my great-aunt Greta Mae had said her mother came to see her earlier that day.

And even though I didn’t know much about death, I somehow knew that my great-aunt seeing her mother, a woman who had died years before, in her hospital room probably meant death was coming for her, too.

When I was 12, it was 1994, and AIDS was the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 25 and 44.

I had a cousin who wanted to come home to die. At that time, families were still a little ignorant about the disease, and many people didn’t want to come around.

But my grandmother, this woman who was so full of love and compassion, welcomed him home.

Together, we would sit with him. We would feed him, fetch blankets, watch television, and sit in silence a lot of the time.

I told him some jokes I had heard at school, and he loved them.

I’m not sure when he died. I just remember the silence that stayed around that house for a very long time afterward.

The next year, just looking for something to do after school, I volunteered at a local hospice. I didn’t think much of it. I saw an ad on public access television.

It was my chance to pretend I knew how to crochet and make toast.

Yeah, some of you work in hospice. You know.

I pretended to know how to crochet. I made toast with a little cinnamon, a little sugar, and a little butter.

But my favorite part of the job was sitting in the room with some of the patients.

We would sit there, and they would tell me their stories. They would ask for hugs. They would want to hold my hand.

And I was 13. I didn’t think much of it. I was just there to listen.

Sometimes, we would simply sit together.

I didn’t know what this thing was called. I didn’t have a name for what I was doing, this holding hands, this hugging, this holding of space.

It was all intuitive. It was just who I was at the time, and it’s who I am now.

Then one day, I was sitting in Daytona Beach talking to a friend who was a hospice nurse. I was telling her about all these experiences that I’m now telling you about.

And she said, “Oh, it sounds to me like you’re a death doula.”

I had never heard the term before.

Not from my grandmother, who had obviously done the work. Not from my mom, who had done the work. Not from my uncles or anybody else in my family.

But it made sense.

For me, it was always about trying to make sure no one felt alone.

It wasn’t something I was trying to make sense of. It was just the thing I did.

So, as a death doula, I offer emotional support and guidance to people nearing the end of their lives and to those navigating waves of grief.

I simply don’t want people to feel alone.

It’s about helping to facilitate a peaceful and dignified transition.

And a lot of the work I’m doing now is in Black communities, helping people navigate the profound journey of life’s conclusion while also trying to make sense of Black grief.

So, Black grief.

Recently, I was on a plane from South Africa to Morocco, sitting next to a man who asked how Black grief was any different from the grief he, a white man, would experience after losing a loved one.

I told him that Black grief tends to be more communal. It is more frequent, and more often than not, it is too soon.

Though grief is as necessary as it is natural, Black people rarely get enough time to process and fully grieve the death of a loved one, or the death of a thing, before it is time to move on and grieve another.

So I show up in these spaces with comfort, joy, compassion, and love.

But I also show up ready to celebrate life. Ready to call names. Ready to call in the ancestors.

And to say, “You know, I know you said you don’t need me, but I’m just outside if you need anything.”

So, I’m a death doula, and I’m a children’s television writer.

And it’s strange, I know.

But it wasn’t until halfway through an interview that I realized where those two things meet.

I was being interviewed by the Esalen Institute. I teach there from time to time, and I was doing an interview for their podcast.

The interviewer said, “These things seem so disconnected. Have you thought about a theme for all the work you’re doing? The death work, the children’s writing, the activism, the films, all of these things?”

And honestly, I hadn’t thought about it.

It had never crossed my mind. I just knew what felt good in the moment. I always say, the moment I stop having fun with it, I’ll be done with it.

Guys, a Drake.

But I hadn’t really thought about it.

And in that instant, it all came to me.

All the work I had been doing, the death doula work, the writing, everything, was about leading people back to joy and happiness.

Deathbeds and writers’ rooms.

In both of these jobs, I’m finding ways to bring joy to people who want it, need it, and deserve it.

I’m creating safe spaces for children and for people at the end of their lives so they can be fully themselves and fully vulnerable.

I’m creating a space big enough for them to continue growing.

Because as long as we’re still alive, why shouldn’t we continue to grow?

It’s not about shutting out the world or making everything look pretty and right.

It’s about getting to the truth.

Because in the truth, I’m able to show children and those at the end of their lives what may come. I can show them what’s out there.

So I stand here today as a testament that joy knows no boundaries.

It is present in the laughter of children and in the serenity of those who are transitioning.

I’ve discovered that the key to bringing joy lies in embracing and honoring every phase of existence, and celebrating every stage of life.

All of this became even more present for me because, at 22, I was diagnosed with a blood-clotting condition that could probably kill me at any moment.

Just hopefully not right there.

So I stand here as a testament that the human experience, like joy, knows no boundaries.

Being alive and being aware that we’re going to die are the same thing.

Being a death doula is being a life doula.

It’s about celebrating every stage of life.

And if we truly believe that joy is a human right, then I hope we pay attention to who is able to access it.

Thank you so much.