About Me
Hello, My Name is Siobhan.
Originally from Richmond, Virginia, I moved to the northern Colorado area when I was nine and have been here for over twenty years. I have worked in a number of industries and have sought learning opportunities from multiple sources, and death work has always seemed to call in everything that I do.
After the deaths of my parents, I decided to add a practical aspect to the spiritual death work I had already been engaged in. Helping and healing people on a spiritual level helped guide me to want to help and heal people on a physical level. I attended an End of Life Doula training through Going With Grace, and after the course was ready to step into my community in a new role.
About My Dad
My dad’s death came quickly after a terminal cancer diagnosis. because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was unable to be at his bedside when he died, and so he died alone. This hit me very hard, and I knew that I wanted to help work towards no one dying alone (unless that is their concept of a “good death”). Through hospice volunteering and having conversations to de-stigmatize death, I hope to make meaning from my dad’s death by helping people with their own.
About My Mom
Shortly after my father died, my mother unexpectedly died. The loss truly broke me, and I still carry that grief with me day to day, but I didn’t have time to properly hold space around her death. My mom hadn’t planned anything (except a memorial playlist to be played “if” she ever died) and having to navigate how to wrap up her affairs while playing detective made the aftermath even heavier. I learned that one of the most important things that I can offer to my community is helping them plan for what they will need to do after a death so that they can meet it with as much ease and grace as possible.
My Philosophy
The primary goal in planning for the end of life and wrapping up affairs is to allow space and ease around death and grief.
The deaths of my parents came in quick succession and compounded my grief experience and fundamentally changed me and my world. As I have continued working through both of their deaths, and in contemplating my own, I have found a calling that needs more voices.
more often than not, our culture and society react to death with fear, avoidance, or disgust. We frequently avoid conversations about death or the slightest shred of confronting our own, but here is where change and healing can begin. Finding what a “good death” means to each of us, we open up a door to have hard conversations with those close to us about what we all want or need for the end of our lives. My role in this is not only to facilitate the conversation but also to offer support and guidance for people who feel they need something holistic and heart centered in addition to their medical care teams.
