By Something special about working in death care is how one’s specific life experience and cultural background can always play a major role in this work. Meg Wade is the Grief Doula at Larkspur Conservation, Tennessee’s first nature preserve for natural burial.
We chat with Meg about how her Appalachian Granny Witch upbringing and ancestry allowed her to design a position which supports the transformation of grief through creativity and community care.
Designing Grief Work: An Interview with Grief Doula, Meg Wade
Image via Larkspur Conservation Facebook
How did you get started with Larkspur, and how would you define what you do there?
I’m an Interfaith Chaplain and Grief Doula. I hold physical space for those grieving no matter what stage of their grief they are currently experiencing—and no matter the loss. I work with folks before, during, and after a death occurs. I’m there long after the casseroles roll in (as we say in the South). My work is dedicated to serving people that want or need extra emotional and spiritual support around their grief process. I create meaningful ways to move through loss, whether that is through crafting and officiating funerals at our preserve or creating meaningful rituals for them to practice. The definitions of what I do are always transforming and growing, because different people need different things after a death occurs. It’s a beautiful gift to have a profession that feels as though it constantly blooms into what community members need in that moment.
I first learned about Larkspur while studying for my Masters in Divinity at Vanderbilt University. During our second year, every MDiv student is required to do a year of field work somewhere in the community where theory meets practice. Larkspur is an organization that seeks to create new ways of healing (both people and the earth) through the resurrection of old community practices, so I immediately knew their ethos of people and nature first deeply resonated with my own spiritual beliefs.
I felt called to grief work, but didn’t feel called to serve in institutions (hospitals, military systems, etc.) that typically employ chaplains. I also don’t belong to any mainstream religious body and am not seeking ordainment, so starting a chaplaincy program at Larkspur—where nature is a friend, collaborator, and held as something sacred to be protected—felt like a convergence of things I’d been working for my entire professional life. I’m a professional poet. I was a creative writing teacher for 13 years before I moved into grief work. At Larkspur, I’m able to meet folks where they are spiritually during a loss, help them move through grief with creativity and language, and create educational opportunities for the community that feel aligned with my own environmental beliefs and practices.
How has your Appalachian Granny Witch upbringing influenced your work in grief?
Three mountain women near Spencer, Tenn circa 1939. Image source.
I’m committed to grief work not only to carry on the legacy of my ancestors, but also to reimagine what community care looks like in this new and sprawling age. I come from a long line of Appalachian Granny Witches. Most Granny Witches in the hills of the Smoky Mountains where I’m from guided folks through birth, yet I am called to work with death. They were midwives and herbalists. They were prophets and healers. The Granny Witches in my family considered their gifts as a deeply spiritual calling from God, and the practices passed down in my family prepared me to use the wisdom of attention to serve and care for community.
My ancestors are with me as I offer funerary ritual and spiritual support to folks who are experiencing loss and death. They are with me as I attend to their grief and healing and they teach me how to hold stories of mourning with deep comfort and care. My ancestors sit with me as I listen. They are with me as I walk the ancient trails at the preserve during a burial. My voice and my presence in the world is a continuation of the river of voices I come from—being an Appalachian Granny Witch is an inheritance that guides my grief work and the intention I put into care.
How does poetry interact with grief work for you?
I was a poet long before I was a grief doula. In fact, being a poet allows me to do this work. One of my favorite poets, C.D. Wright, noted that, ““poetry is the language of intensity. Because we are going to die, an expression of intensity is justified.” Poetry is a tool that re-imagines grief. It asks us to witness and gives name and image to what happens when we do not ignore our wounds. Poems can serve as an emotional or spiritual container; they become a vessel to siphon or process whatever grief, loss, or longing spills out of us that day.
Poetry might not make what we’ve lost return to us, but it certainly holds us as we remember. It makes life with grief more possible and attends to our deepest hurts. The philosopher, Hannah Arendt, explains it best when she says poetry is, “perhaps the most human and least worldly of the arts, the one in which the end product remains closest to the thought that inspired it.” I believe poetry is essential in grief work because it offers us a way back to ourselves when all seems lost. We each have our own nouns and verbs that can express what we feel when we grieve—to me, poetry is the most authentic expression of that emotion.
What is your favorite part about your work?
My favorite part about the work is the relationships that are formed when I work with new people. I’m so grateful for every single person who entrusts their grief journey in my care. In my work as a grief doula, I cannot bring someone back from the dead. I cannot “fix” someone’s grief, nor do I feel called to try, but what I can do is invite imagination and transformation into the grieving process. I can model vulnerability so others might feel comfortable with being vulnerable too. I offer tools that might help grief feel more manageable and life feel more present. I pour tea for mourners; I hold space and listen. Simply put: my favorite part of my work is the people. This work is a way to share my oversize love of the world with them.
What is the most surprising?
I knew working with grief and death would fill my life with a certain reverence for the mysteries of the world, but the most wonderful surprise is that it also fills my life with curiosity. Every time I listen to a story about someone who has died it allows me to see new ways of being in the world through the life they lived. Every time I see someone honor a person they love who is no longer with us, it makes me love humanity more.
I think most people shy away from raw, human emotion, but it surprises me how grateful I am when people open themselves up enough to cry in my presence. My work is filled with heartache and hurt, but it also filled with love. There is so much love to find in the heart of grief, and it constantly inspires and surprises me how full of love humanity can be.
What advice would you give to someone interested in becoming a Grief Doula?
Trust your imagination. Nurture it. It will guide you to serve the communities to which you belong. If there is a need you see in the world, it can’t be filled if it is not first imagined. So let yourself imagine how you want to serve as a grief doula. Think about what communities you want to serve, what talents and gifts you can offer, and what you want to give to those who might need you most. It’s not just a job, it’s a calling and a profession of service. So imagine what you’d like for your role to be, then surround yourself with people who want to imagine with you. Find your lane and if there isn’t a path there—carve one.
What does your day-to-day look like in this position?
One of the best parts of my work is that every day looks different. Some days I’m writing curriculum or facilitating workshops. Some days I’m meeting with families about a loss; helping them write obituaries or hand-crafting meaningful funeral services or creating rituals so they can honor their loved one in a way that feels right. Sometimes I have follow-up visits with family members of those we’ve buried who’ve died that need a bit of extra support— I’m sitting with them, holding space. Other days I’m visiting classrooms or civic groups or religious institutions to talk about natural burial with their community and facilitate hard conversations around mortality and the inevitability of death.
Grief takes all kinds of shapes and forms in this world, so it’s my job as a grief doula to meet grief where it’s at—in all its forms—so people might feel a little bit more at ease when talking about death with other people in the future.
Anything else you’d like to share about being a grief doula and your work at Larkspur?
We live in a grief avoidant society. So many folks today can’t look at (let alone acknowledge and work through) their own grief, trauma, and pain—which rules out any healing of our collective, generational, or transgenerational griefs that reside here too. Larkspur encourages me to bring conversations about death and loss (that might never happen otherwise) to people who might need to talk about it. It’s an organization that is changing the way we approach death and asking people to see what nature can teach us about endings and beginnings.
My work as Larkspur’s grief doula allows me to hold people’s stories, which reminds me that nature has held humanity’s stories for as long as people have been on this earth. Nature itself has a big story! Being a grief doula at Larkspur means honoring the stories of both people and nature—it’s the most meaningful work I’ve ever done.
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