I’m very excited to bring my community my newest service offering; I am now a trained Death Doula! Over the next few weeks, keep coming back as I roll out more about what a Death Doula is and how I can support you in planning a loving, peaceful, dignified death for your loved one or for you as a caregiver.
Please listen to my announcement message in the video below. Below the video you can find the script.
Hi, it’s me, Cheryl Ryan Chan, and today I have an announcement to make that I am extremely excited to share with you.
I have spent the last couple of years stepping back from the rigorous work I had been doing for 10 years so that I could support my parents through their final days.It was an honor and a life-altering experience.
In my work as a person-centered planning facilitator and practitioner, trainer and public speaker, advocate and proud family member of the autism and intellectual disability community, I’ve met hundreds of people and led them together with their Circles of Support through the process of planning for a future of joy, opportunity, and dignity.I have written workshops and presentations, had the privilege of presenting keynotes and speeches all over the country to thousands of audience members.
My focus in my work has been to tackle the tough topics around creating full lives for people with disabilities.They are the things nobody wants to discuss, because they are too hard or awkward or even taboo. Those tough topics include everything from living in a systems-centered world where humanity is secondary to money, to caregiving behaviors that impede progress, to helping people build relationships, to what I consider the most important topic of all: preparing our loved ones for life beyond us.
Back in November, after holding my father as he took his last breath and joined my mother in a place where I believe they are together free of burden and in eternal joy, something began to grow in me that just felt…right.The feeling continued to grow until it became all-consuming and filled my heart and soul.I can only describe it as a voice that wouldn’t stop calling me and instructing me to follow it, because my next task here is waiting.
So, I did.I followed that call and it led me to where I am now.Yesterday, I become a certified Death Doula.I announce today that I am adding to mywork in the disability community my services in supporting people with disabilities and their loved ones through the process of dying with dignity and the love that everyone deserves.
This is arguably the toughest topic of all, but I’m ready to take this one on.Right now, people with disabilities are dying in institutional settings like group homes or with paid caregivers, with staff who are under prepared and too often without the loving presence of family and loved ones.
At the same time, parents and family members like myself are facing our deaths in fear for our children, unable to think of ourselves and how we would like to take our final journeys.
As a doula, I am now equipped with the planning tools and resources to help you plan a peaceful, dignified death and honor every soul for the beauty they have brought to the world.Whether you’d like to call upon me in advance or in the last hours, I want to serve you or your loved one.
Over the coming days I will be adding a section to my website at cherylryanchan.com on the doula services I will be offering free of charge to anyone in my disability community.I will be reaching out to systems providers to offer special services to support staff and systems professionals in residential or hospital settings.I am not a clinician, but doula work can provide ways to demystify the dying process, hold space for listening without judgement, and prepare people for the experience that binds us all as beautiful, precious humans.I look forward to this next calling.
