00:00We're not used to being around people who are dying anymore.
00:09We've forgotten how to come alongside each other.
00:21We can just make vision boards of possibly of your fantasy funeral.
00:28We're short of caregivers and I would like to help the community, whatever community
00:35you're in, be more at ease with the reality that death is something that happens to all
00:45of us.
00:54I am an end-of-life doula and it's sometimes called a death doula.
00:59Some people have all kinds of different names for it.
01:01But what I do is I companion people who are dying and those that love them and are caring
01:08for them, whether that's family or friends.
01:10Here at Sparrow, we're about to have an event which is talking about death over dessert
01:17and hanging out in just a really relaxed setting.
01:21Some people decorate boxes similar to this before they're cremated as a way just to memorialise
01:27the person too.
01:31I'm sort of facilitating conversation with whoever comes with questions about the dying
01:36process, about after death, funeral care, choices people have and how they may want
01:43their body taken care of.
01:46Things like that.
01:47Gosh, that's beautiful.
01:48It's going to be standing in front of the dead spirit.
01:49So pretty.
01:50Hey.
01:51Hey.
01:52Hi.
01:53I just want to thank you.
01:54Yeah, thanks so much for coming.
02:07It's wonderful to see you.
02:08My name's Emma.
02:09I'm an end-of-life doula.
02:11This is Erica, who many of you know, the founder of Sparrow.
02:16I had a lot of people die in my life and I always walked away from funerals feeling like
02:22they didn't represent the person that I loved.
02:25It always stuck with me and I had very clear ideas about what I would want a funeral home
02:29to be like, that it didn't really look like it would have traditionally a funeral home
02:33looks like, that it didn't smell like one, that it be more of a vessel for people to
02:38fill with what's important to them.
02:40You're here not just for dead people, you're here for living people.
02:44You're here for people to drop by and it's like a space that's open to walk in, to sit,
02:51to be in a place that deals with end-of-life, but in a way that feeds your living life right
02:55now.
02:56We're human beings.
02:58We have bodies, but we're not just our bodies, right?
03:02We are something else as well.
03:04And I think we are, you can call it a mixture of memory, experience, desire, longing.
03:11So it's like working with the whole person leading up to the death, but here happening
03:17after and the storytelling that happens here is amazing.
03:21So we've got some activities here.
03:24We can just make vision boards of possibly of your fantasy funeral of what maybe you
03:30would love to see yourself, where you'd like to be.
03:54What's this?
03:55Potentially because ski mountain, I love skiing.
03:58I would imagine that people would be like, she loves skiing.
04:00Okay, right.
04:01Someone would say that.
04:03I have a playlist here for like something that might make people laugh.
04:07Like if Charlotte the Harlot started playing, people would be like, what?
04:10Did someone do that by accident?
04:11Good inappropriate moment.
04:13Yeah, totally.
04:14I have a do not come in list.
04:16Where will you post that?
04:17I would have a security guard.
04:18Oh, there you go.
04:19I was just kind of going through this travel block, like a scavenger hunt maybe around
04:24some great places.
04:26I like that.
04:27This is my end of life yacht that I crafted.
04:31I want to have like something very beautiful and extravagant and fabulous.
04:36I've learned to articulate and kind of remove any like stigmas that I have or associate
04:44with death in a way.
04:46People in their twenties are necessarily comfortable talking about death.
04:50I think it's something where it's taboo to kind of like talk about.
04:56And death is something that everybody experiences and will experience.
05:01And I think because of that, there should be some sort of camaraderie between us as
05:08people.
05:09Charlotte, would you like to pick a question?
05:11I would love to.
05:12Okay.
05:13What are common things you've seen in a person's last moments before they die?
05:17Oh, that's a good question.
05:19Within the last 12 hours, someone coming out of sleep and seeing something that they recognize
05:27and reaching out or even partly sitting up and then going back.
05:31Mm-hmm.
05:32Yep.
05:33That's certainly something I've seen.
05:35We will either be the dying person or we will be around somebody that we love who is dying.
05:50And to get more familiar with that, I think it's a form of wisdom to just get real about
05:55that.
05:56And also in keeping mortality on your mind a bit more, you live better.
