‘Facing death with openness’: Death doulas offer four-week workshop demystifying our final breaths on earth

Mortality has always captured the human imagination. Art, philosophy, ceremony, comedy, tourism, religion, record-keeping, pop culture – it all contain traces of our fascination with the inevitable. But the ways in which we have explored and discussed it over time have shifted along with our culture. This is one of the many reasons Barb Romero and Anne Whigham became preoccupied with death.

“We’ve been friends for several years, though life kept us from seeing each other regularly. One Sunday we reconnected at Unity (Spiritual Center), and when asked what we were each doing, we both said we want to be death doulas. We laughed at the coincidence, but it felt like a clear sign,” Romero and Whigham said in a joint statement via email.

Romero spent 50 years working in medicine, 10 years as a registered nurse and 40 years as a family practice physician assistant, but it was the death of her parents that prompted her to explore the concept and experience of death more deeply.

Whigham came from a 40-year career in social services, in which her work prompted her to learn about death and dying for decades in order to be able to lead workshops and facilitate meaningful conversations about such a challenging topic.

Though from different professional backgrounds, they both felt a calling to train as death doulas and guide others through the dying experience. But as it turned out, sitting bedside through a person’s passing wasn’t enough for either of them. Romero and Whigham wanted to do more to help people prepare in advance, practically, emotionally and spiritually, for everything that comes with loss of life.

“We began hosting a Death Café at Affinity South Hill. People came with lots of practical questions, about paperwork, options, and what really happens, so we developed a four-week workshop series, which we’ve now been offering for more than a year,” said Romero and Whigham.

Now their workshop comes to the South Hill branch of the Spokane Public Library as the “Demystifying Death” series, featuring four sessions, beginning Wednesday and continuing through Oct. 8, 22 and 29, with all sessions taking place from 4 to 5:30 p.m.

The first session begins the discussion to help shift the narrative around death away from fear and towards practical readiness, peace and reverence. Whigham and Romero will help attendees examine how personal experiences with death can shape us.

The second session takes a deeper look at the actual dying process, with candid conversation around what happens physically and emotionally as a person passes, as well as how those around them can approach their experience with compassion.

The third session focuses on the arduous but necessary logistics of financial and legal planning. From end-of-life wishes to power of attorney, this session brings clarity to all of the paperwork and preparation that will help ensure a person’s values and choices remain intact after their passing. Romero and Whigham have even developed a “death checklist” to make it easier to ensure all of the tasks and considerations have been accounted for.

The final session explores living, and how it can be informed by keeping death in mind. In the tradition of “memento mori,” Romero and Whigham close the series with a broader discussion of how remembering that we all must die can be put into intentional practices of inner exploration, fostering love and awareness, and shaping our legacy.

The series is open to anyone curious about death, with its primary mission being to foster more open conversation about it in day-to-day life.

“In the past, death was woven into daily life. Funerals were held at home, and communities came together to support grieving families. Today death is often hidden from view. Many people feel uncomfortable even mentioning it, fearing it might bring it closer,” Romero and Whigham said.

It is difficult to pinpoint why today’s society is averse to the topic. It is not as prevalent in visual imagery like it once was from the 14th to 18th centuries. Thanks to modern medicine, safety and hygiene practices, we don’t experience it as early or in as large of quantities as societies had in the past. The popularization of embalming practices have spared us from the sight of natural corpses. Postmortem photography was a fad that came and went.

And although it is arguably nice to wake up and make a morning cup of coffee without having to consider the mortality of yourself and those around you, it does leave us in a position of being a bit less prepared and a little more awkward when the need to discuss it does arise.

“By facing death with openness, we reduce fear and increase peace of mind. We can prepare both emotionally and practically,” said Romero and Whigham.

“In doing so, we give our families the gift of clarity, care and comfort. A healthier relationship with death also makes it easier to embrace life fully, knowing we’ve made peace with the end.”