Our Stories of Death and Loss are a pathway to this Work

(Article by Alexandra Derwen, founder and lead facilitator of the Journey with Death, Death & Grief Doula preparation course)

As June comes towards its close the Journey with Death takes us through the topic of "Your Stories of Death and Loss" and this is always a valuable and powerful exercise to sit with. I have been working and re-working the Doula course workbook for 8 years now and I notice with each passing year how my stories are still being written, they evolve. It is coming up towards the 1 year anniversary of my mothers death on 10th July and, despite being considered by some to be a grief "expert", I am not entirely sure what my Grief is doing! The notes I made this time last year have of course had an addendum and it has not gone the way I thought it would.

I remember the course in South Wales in 2023, getting away to facilitate that was excruciating, my mother despite being in her full dementia seemed to "just know" that I was leaving again and she started to throw hooks in my direction, mostly how much she was suffering, and I felt really terrible about going. My mind was, therefore, stretched when I was facilitating; largely I was able to stay present and do the work I am here to do, and yet, there she was, always in the periphery of my vision, always on the sidelines of my mind, and the perpetual feeling that nothing I do would ever be enough. Several participants on that retreat had lost their mothers young; and I remember how for the first time really I let the thought enter my mind that I might miss her when she goes. The pain that washed over me with that uncomfortable thought was terrifying, I projected it into the future, what it would actually be like to lose my mother... I became scared, this grief would be too big!

I remember going up to one of the participants and saying to her how scared I was that the grief of losing my mother would wash me completely away, and I asked her if, when the time came, I could contact her since she knew... and of course she said yes.

Fast forward to July 2024 and my mother dies gently, peacefully and without suffering; after years of suffering. I gave her the death rites that have become my passion and life's work, she had a beautiful funeral, I navigated the family dynamics and weeks after her death like a "pro"; waves of emotion washed through me yes but that terrible feeling, that yawning chasm of agony that I expected? None of it. Just this bizarre feeling of complete liberation and joy and delight for her to be beyond pain, suffering and longing. Having been a carer all my life, to my father, to my grandmother, to my mother... suddenly all dependency (except the dogs of course) was lifted from me.

I remember describing it at the time as if a whole wall of my house had been blown away and beyond it was only stars. A whole part of my psyche opened out and I was almost scared to look at this whirling cosmos of potential, it seemed so vast and expansive. I mean... without dependency, what might be possible?

Waves upon waves upon waves of bliss kept hitting me; I could see the energetic waves of birds in flight, when birds sang it was as if they were singing from within my heart, I couldn't place myself in time and space where there was "bird" and there was "me", rivers sang to me, trees bowed to me, I moved with Grace through the natural worlds. My mother was in my dreams, she visited me riding on heron's backs and I became possessed by the idea of folding 1000 cranes. I slept deeply at odd times of the day, I would wake up drenched in sweet tears. I felt God to be in every minute detail of the mundane.

I observed 40 days of mourning; I would have stayed in that state forever. The breaking of those 40 days was the film crew landing on my door to film the Death Doula course in my home in September. That was such a bold shock and return! We watched the film a couple of weeks back at the screening for us who participated and you can see in me this softness of form, shapelessness of being, exhausted eyes, solid weight. I was in this world, but not of it, at that time.

It was the Return that was difficult, the underworld ecstasies of that mourning period ebbed away and normality was expected of me. I was more attention deficit than usual, trying to run a business, to make sure bills were paid, cash flow suffered because of my absence, I wasn't easily finding support. I wondered where my friends had all gone. I think they thought that I would be "too much", my 3 closest friends handed in their notices; I found I was looking around and asking for help and it wasn't coming. I was panicking and really felt very alone.

It was earlier this year, approaching my birthday in March that I decided that I would actively re-engage in my local community and positively seek friends and friendships. So I had a big gathering for my 45th, a walk, a sauna, a swim in the lake and a pizza party! I made a speech, that told my gathered community that in the underworld of my mourning time I somehow went beyond the reaches of connection, and that I now realised that not only was I incapable of articulating what help I needed but that everyone was also without capacity to intervene. It was a time of true solitude, but that time was now over and I was back and that I loved them all; and I know they love me.

I can't explain really the phenomenon of loneliness of grief; it totally took me by surprise after years of cultivating community and connections, locally and globally. But the truth was that I shimmered away behind a veil to another realm and very few people were going to be able to see me, or meet me there.

It has made me a better Death Doula. I will be better equipped to see others behind that shimmering veil myself now and to offer homeopathic doses of empathy to say "I see you" "you are not lost entirely"; this is parr for the course.

So, 30 years a death doula, 1 year without a mother, and I have learned more about myself, and Grief and the miracles, magic, mystery and power of True Grief in this past year than in all the 29 years before it.

And as the first year anniversary approaches I am taking myself off for a much needed pilgrimage - tomorrow I will start the Offas Dyke Path in Chepstow and take 10 days to walk it North, through the ancestral lands of the Marshes, where my welsh ancestors were subsistence hill farmers; and through the borderlands of northeast Wales where I grew up. A nostalgic way to just honour where I have come from.

My mood going into this pilgrimage is low, I feel grief to be very close. Waves of the Sorrows of the World wash in, but I know that behind that is also my personal losses as I wander the world an Orphan. The fading photo on my altar of Grandma, Dad and Mum is symbolic of them fading too; and I want to let them fade, may they merge with Source and be completely free. But then... here is me, only one blood relation left in my brother, no children. I too am free, but that freedom is bittersweet.

We have places left on our Death & Grief Doula course retreats in Sweden 12th - 17th September 2025 and Pembrokeshire 30th Sept - 5th October 2025; these retreats mark the formal intake for the Journey with Death 2026. All details and sign up links are found on our website https://www.journeywithdeath.com/2025-death-doula-course