‘The more we embrace death, the more we can embrace living’
Journey Home, a not-for-profit, is a safe space to talk about death
Let’s begin at the end — the big one. Death, if “end” is even the right way to conceptualize it.
It’s not so much the proverbial elephant in the room as the granddaddy of all the unaddressed elephants in all the rooms. It’s there hovering over every occasion, maybe hiding in the wallpaper but drawing closer with each breath, throwing its shadows (and light, Renee Moor would say) across time, however unacknowledged.
When we do allow death into the conversation, it’s usually to remark, as though of a party crasher, “Who invited that colossal downer?”
Who invited death in? Life did, Renee might say. They came together through the same door, so to speak. “Life and death are not separate from each other, and the more we embrace death, the more we can embrace living,” she says.
Renee, the founder of Journey Home: For Empowered Living and Dying, sees death not as the eternal party crasher, but the guest who is one day going to come to dinner. And, well, we might be the dinner, as it were, but she says that doesn’t mean the experience shouldn’t be meaningful, even beautiful.
When I ask her how her new nonprofit is doing, Renee acknowledges that beautifying death is a bit of a PR challenge or something to that effect. But she hosts many full sessions and richly appreciative groups dealing with grief support, death education, end-of-life guidance and planning, and runs a team of volunteer compassionate doulas who support the dying and their loved ones in homes, hospices, hospitals and long-term-care homes. So her work, more important than ever, is taking hold.
“We are powerless over life and death, but we hold the power in how we live and die,” she says.
Journey Home’s mission statement is: “To change how we experience death, dying and grief by creating beautiful deaths and meaningful memories at the end of life.”
It operates out of a beautiful, multifaceted studio space on King Street West in the handsome old former post office, and the ambience is one perfectly suited to the place’s approach to negotiating end-of-life passages, rethought and newly constituted out of healthier insights.
The space, the music, its light and lightness, the fragrance and the way the outside comes in through windows, the gentle lines and colours and the flow of the rooms — all of these are an antidote to the traditional darkness and weight of imponderable sadness.
There is a serenity here, a peacefulness that transcends stereotypes of finality.
But there’s more to it than that. There is, of course, Renee herself. And not only Renee but the people she brings in.
“I was inspired (to open Journey Home) by the personal experience of losing my dad as well as my role as a death doula in our community.
“I witnessed that our community relies heavily on the medical profession to support us in death, but they are educated in life and prolonging it. This means there is no one there guiding us in death and dying, which leads to deaths that are filled with chaos and confusion.”
In the case of her father, Renee and her family knew, upon learning he had pancreatic cancer, that he had about six months to live. He was 66. This was about 10 years ago.
The family drew around and he remained at home, his fervent wish, until near the end, at which point he had to go into hospice. Renee recalls how angry her dad was and how much guilt her mom carried not being able to have him die at home.
The experience left a deep impression and helped bring her path toward death work ever more sharply into focus. What she now knows is that her dad could have received his final wish. She wants to spare other families that sorrow.
Renee had been a behavioural therapist helping parents of children with autism and, later, as a Buddhist psychotherapist and a yoga instructor.
But as she digested the losses she’d experienced, she recognized she was being drawn toward a watershed. By the time COVID-19 hit, and she had even more time to reflect on the relative isolation, she decided to become a death doula. She took courses and became certified as such.
“I felt we are missing so much of the wisdom that death holds,” says Renee.
People should be talking about what they want to be dressed in when they go, what music will be playing, who will be there. Bed facing the window? Fragrance in the room? Renee refers to this as the sympathy of the senses.
“Some like to go in comfortable pyjamas, with a scent of lavender in the air,” she says. Some want their glasses on. Men tend to like to dress more formally, something with dignity, she says, and women like to have their hair and nails done.
Renee hopes that if we can make death beautiful and full of love and compassion, we will soften our fears around it because right now it is often cold and medical and she wants death to be held in the hands of love.
Journey Home also offers:
■ Compassionate Doula Services — an outreach community service supporting those at end of life;
■ Share In Your Loss Circle (you are not alone in grief process) — Tuesdays, 10 to 11 a.m.;
■ Palliative Diagnosis Support (a safe place to express fears, frustrations and emotions) — Tuesdays, 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.;
■ Caregiver Support Gathering (feel seen and heard with others thrown into caregiver roles with the challenges of advocacy) — third Tuesday of the month, 11:15 to 12:15 p.m.;
■ Death Cafe (safe space to discuss fears, hopes, vulnerabilities, curiosities around death) — third Sunday of every month, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Journey Home is hosting a community memorial walk to celebrate those we’ve loved and lost (which includes a barbecue and family fun) and to raise awareness and money for the centre’s not-for-profit activities on Sunday at Dundas Driving Park, from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Adults are $10, kids are free. Register via the website at journeyhomesupport.com.