Welcoming the Whole House
At the end of the day, all any of us really want is to be seen. But that can't happen when someone already decided which parts of you are welcome to the table.
Bring every fucking version of yourself; we don't do superficial here
grief-informed identity work for women in transition
You don't need ten options. You need one.
Hi, I'm Abby. UAE's first certified End of Life Doula.
And yeah, I know. You're probably thinking- what the hell is that?
Honestly? I didn't know either.
When you hear Doula, you think birth right? Except I kept hearing the word during the darkest stretch of my life.
And here's the strange part, at the time that this word kept coming up in my head, my sister was about to give birth to my niece. So, I kept thinking, doula, okay, that has something to do with pregnancy, birth, makes sense.
But in my head, I wasn't feeling birth. I was feeling death.
And honestly? That horrified me.
Especially because it wasn't pulling me toward the beginning of something. It was pulling me towards the end. The dying part. The part no one wants to talk about.
It took me weeks of digging to understand why. Birth doulas support labor of bringing life in. Death doulas support the labor of releasing life out.
Both are the bridge between worlds. Both hold space for the transition. Both stay present through the mystery.
I wasn't being pulled away from life. I was being pulled to the other side of the same work.
Turns out, not every death is physical. And I've lived one too many of those in this lifetime. No one teaches you how to grieve those.
So here I am. Doing the work I spent my entire life trying to hide from.
Meet the
Doula
Meet the Doula
Hi, I'm Abby. UAE's first certified End of Life Doula.
And yeah, I know. You're probably thinking- what the hell is that?
Honestly? I didn't know either.
When you hear Doula, you think birth right? Except I kept hearing the word during the darkest stretch of my life.
And here's the strange part, at the time that this word kept coming up in my head, my sister was about to give birth to my niece. So, I kept thinking, doula, okay, that has something to do with pregnancy, birth, makes sense.
But in my head, I wasn't feeling birth. I was feeling death.
And honestly? That horrified me.
Especially because it wasn't pulling me toward the beginning of something. It was pulling me towards the end. The dying part. The part no one wants to talk about.
It took me weeks of digging to understand why. Birth doulas support labor of bringing life in. Death doulas support the labor of releasing life out.
Both are the bridge between worlds. Both hold space for the transition. Both stay present through the mystery.
I wasn't being pulled away from life. I was being pulled to the other side of the same work.
Turns out, not every death is physical. And I've lived one too many of those in this lifetime. No one teaches you how to grieve those.
So here I am. Doing the work I spent my entire life trying to hide from.