The things people ask on the first call.

An end-of-life doula is a non-medical companion for dying. I sit with the person who is dying and with the people who love them, help get wishes written down while there is time, keep vigil so the family can rest, and handle the practical and administrative work before and after a death.

A doula does not replace hospice, a doctor, a lawyer or a funeral director. I work alongside all of them, and I am usually the one person in the room whose only job is you.

Alongside it. Hospice provides medical care, medication and nursing visits, and it is excellent at those things. What hospice cannot usually provide is hours of unhurried presence, a calm person through the night, or someone to make the phone calls afterwards.

I fit into the gaps: the long afternoons, the overnight vigil, the conversation the family has been avoiding, and the paperwork that starts the morning after.

Yes. A great deal of death administration arrives weeks or months later, when the casseroles have stopped and the letters keep coming. Estate accounts, subscriptions, pensions, insurance, the digital estate, the thank-you notes that never got written.

If a death has left you with a pile you cannot face, that is exactly the work I do. There is no cut-off.

Yes, and I will never call it a smaller loss. I help with the decision and its timing, with planning a euthanasia at home or at the clinic and being there for it, with burial, cremation and keepsakes, and with the household afterwards, children included.

People grieving an animal are welcome in grief movement sessions too. It is the same grief.

The first thirty minutes are free, on the phone or in person, and always will be. After that I work by the hour for admin and vigil time, or for a flat fee when you want me for the whole arc, before, during and after.

I will quote plainly on the call, in writing, and nothing starts until you say so. I do not publish a price list because two families rarely need the same thing.

No. I am non-denominational and I hold no view about what you should believe. If your faith matters to you I will make room for it, find the right clergy, and honor every ritual you want. If you have none, there will be no chanting, no candles you did not ask for, and no language you did not choose.

In person locally, and remotely anywhere. A surprising amount of this job happens on the phone and in shared documents, which travels fine. Vigil and bedside work is in person; planning and death administration can be done from anywhere.

Call or email and we will talk for thirty minutes, free. You do not need to know what you need yet. Arriving unsure is the normal way to arrive.