The authors also aptly observe: “As death has been hidden away in hospitals and nursing homes, it has become less familiar and harder to talk about.”

We best serve grieving families when we become curious about, and learn how to sit with, our own pain. This is difficult, to put it mildly.

We are called to hold space, not to interpret events for others.

Perhaps prayer has nothing to do with communicating to a superhuman being, power, or state of mind; perhaps its function is purely pragmatic. It is a ritual, a tool, one that binds us together in times of joy and sorrow.

Meditation, massage, yoga, eating well, therapy, and healthy relationships help open us to acknowledge, honor, and accept the forces compelling us to numb uncomfortable feelings through disassociation or fracture.

Butler describes slow medicine as a care approach that involves shared decision-making, a focus on alleviating suffering rather than “fixing an organ or extending a life,” and the acceptance of the reality of terminal illness. Slow medicine is “loving, beautiful, and holy” work.

For bereaved parents, simply getting out of bed is an act of resilience.

She is yelling. She is raging. I listen. “I am so angry. So angry! I hate this,” she repeats. My task in this moment is to mirror back to her the emotional storm at hand. This way I can honor both her anger and her grief. At best, she has days to live and she craves decades more. I try to sit in her hell.

The work of being a doula and a chaplain means cozying up to fear, getting to know it, sitting with its metal taste in the mouth and its gut-ripping grip. It also means expanding beyond the fear, and we can only do this well for others if we can do this for ourselves.