Key Points
- Death doulas
- Non-religious funerals
- Grief and healing
escaped the corporate world and never looked back. A death doula, non-religious chaplain, celebrant, therapist, mortuary assistant, funeral director, and educator, Sarah can step into a person or family’s life at any point along the death care to post-funeral spectrum, and sometimes she’s there for the whole thing.
From Sarah we learn about the specifics of doula work, how she navigates stressed or grieving families, and how each family teaches her something new.
A heart-opening chat, we also touch on finding humour in the deeply unfunny (right up our alley), the importance of self-care and community, and what people misunderstand most about death.
Sometimes death can be a healing portal, right? Things can kind of come together and we find love and connection.Sarah Tolmie
Links
Grave Matters is an SBS Audio podcast about death, dying and the people helping us understand both better. Find it in your podcast app such as the SBS Audio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or LiSTNR.
Hosts: Anthony Levin and Nadine J. Cohen
Producer: Jeremy Wilmot
Writers: Anthony Levin and Nadine J. Cohen
Art and design: Karina Aslikyan
SBS team: Max Gosford, Joel Supple, Caroline Gates
Guest: Sarah Tolmie
If you'd like to speak to someone, you can reach a counsellor at Beyond Blue at any time, day or night, by calling 1300 22 4636 or visiting . Also, Lifeline offers 24/7 crisis support on 13 11 14, and supports people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. In an emergency call 000.
Transcript
Content warning: This episode mentions death, child death and other potentially difficult content. Please take care.
Nadine: Welcome to a special bonus episode of Grave Matters.
Anthony Levin, hi.
Anthony: Nadine Jambalaya Cohen.
Nadine: That reminds me of the movie Steel Magnolias but that's off-topic.
Anthony: Yes, or Seinfeld.
So who are we talking to today, Nadine?
Nadine: Our guest today is the wonderful, Sarah Tolmie. A death doula, funeral director, celebrant, grief therapist and non-religious hospital chaplain, Sarah provides holistic end-of-life consulting, death care and memorial services in and around the Central Coast of New South Wales.
Hello, Sarah Tolmie. Thank you for joining us on Grave Matters.
Sarah: Absolute pleasure.
Nadine: You're a funeral director, a grief therapist, a death doula, a marriage and funeral celebrant an end-of-life consultant and more.
Sarah: And more.
Nadine: And you're trained in basic body care and mortuary assisting, which is amazing.
How did you find yourself, I guess, in this particular niche field? Is it something you were always drawn to? Is death something you've always been comfortable with?
Sarah: I suppose I began this journey when I became a celebrant, which was a pathway out of corporate lifestyle. And I discovered very quickly that in the funeral space, it was done poorly - a very, sort of thin attempt at ceremony and ritual in our Western-style funeral industry. Personal experiences amidst my family and my friendship groups cemented the idea that we're not doing this very well.
I trained as a therapist and in emotional coaching and well-being as well. And then just kept building on the skills in this space. I found myself training in clinical pastoral care in the hospital system, probably as one of their first non-religious chaplains. And I worked at Gosford Hospital, right at the coalface of dealing with families at death, end-of-life, serious illness and working through the emotional, familial challenges that brought.
And my paths crossed with a funeral team that was trying to innovate in the space and that's when I became a funeral director, bringing all my skills together: therapy, celebrancy, and emotional literacy and well-being. Mortuary care skills came on the job, working with my families, and that's how it all came together.
Nadine: And do you go by death doula? What's your answer when people ask what you do?
Sarah: The word doula means someone who serves. A death doula is someone who serves in the space of death. Historically, that has been a term that has been given to women, but it's not that alone anymore, there’s as all of us doing it.
I used to feel a bit strange about the word, and I've oscillated over the course of 10-12 years, figuring out how to describe what I do. Some people look at it and think it's very hippie and woo-woo and I moved away from that for a while and called myself an end-of-life consultant.
I'm happy to use any term now. It could be a midwife of the soul, death doula, end-of-life consultant, end-of-life guide.
***
Anthony: I'm sure the nature of your work changes pretty dramatically from one day to the next, but can you give us a general idea of what you do?
Sarah: It can be helping families have the conversation, and provide information and resources to navigate a terminal illness, a dying process, the actual death, the active dying, the after-death care. It could be, and also is, the funeral preparations and funeral planning.
A lot of where I work is in adapting to the changing landscape of your emotional journey through death. And then the practical logistical things of organising your community around you to give care and support.
So I think part of what we do, whichever word you want to describe us is we resource, we give information, we help families and communities find their capacity, which I think is really innate in all of us. We’ve all got an instinct for this, as we were discussing before.
We've been doing death since humans have been alive and this is not new knowledge, it's old knowledge. And so I'm just there helping people to access that again and find their confidence in the space.
***
Anthony: You mentioned a word there that sort of jumped out at me - the woo-woo.
What do you think people misunderstand about death doulas? What is it not?
Sarah: It's not weird. It's really natural. It's really natural and it's really tender and it's not scary and it's not morbid and it's not depressing. In fact, I find working in this space to be the most joyful, life-affirming, connecting intimate work.
And it's surprising how every family finds their little vein of humour to get them through. So there's actually a lot of laughter and ridiculousness that we can build into the process of doing this work.
It's a very human space.
Anthony: That is something I noticed reading through the testimonials on your website - how much joy seemed to come across from the families of the people that you helped. I was really touched by that and really, it was just very affirming, you know, and people were like, what a wonderful celebration we had. And, you know, those kinds of sentiments, which you don't necessarily expect.
Sarah: Oh, thank you. It's true. I mean, the ceremony process in particular is a place of great expression, and there is a lot of joy and humour because there's a lot of love. But I think what's interesting as well is when I'm working with my families, just the amount of humanity and warmth and love and tenderness and laughter and joy we can get there as well.
I often think it's kinda like panning for gold, right? Like there's a lot of stuff that is really hard and gnarly and rocky and awful. And then there are just these little bits of gold that are amazing and stay and make it all just worthwhile.
***
Nadine: At what stage of the process are you usually brought in? And like, when do you bow out?
Sarah: I come in at any step in the process. Sometimes I'm coming in as a holistic funeral director and celebrate. Sometimes I'm coming in with a call - my husband is dying and we don't know what to do.
I will tell you the way I love to work most is when that happens, is you know, a diagnosis is present, there's not a good outcome, we're looking at something that is terminal and life-limiting, and I am working with families where we navigate that first conversation and preparation and support.
And then I may stay connected with them over different points of time where things may change and escalate and amplify. And at each stage, bringing just the amount of information they need. Sometimes if you come in too early, too fast with too much, it's overwhelming, right? It's not necessary. So just sort of walking with them, maybe just one step ahead of them, with an eye on the horizon. If you take them there too soon, it takes them out of the process. It takes them out of the presence that them into being with their people and with their families.
And so to be able to kind of have that connection, to just dip in and dip out when needed, called in when things are becoming a little bit more imminent and giving again the guidance, the information, enough for them to feel confident to do them themselves
This is a really intimate space. I don't need to be present at someone's dying if they're not needing me. This is the most intimate of life passages, and I just resource my families enough and they know that I'm there and that's generally enough.
And then if they're dying at home, I can kind of come in and do some support before and definitely then I'll be coming in after to help them do some after-death care of their person - wash, dress, anoint, shroud, whatever they need - and then go into more deeper funeral planning or memorial planning if they need that. And then what happens later, as the grief settles in and finds its rhythm and expression, I'm there to help there too, if they need that.
That whole continuum is how I love to work. It's not always how I get to work - sometimes I'm just coming in somewhere along that continuum for a while. But any way that I can be there to support my families is my happy place. Truly.
Nadine: I just wanna ask, you know, you say your families can contact you at any time, to come in at any time. What is the guidance that you give people around contacting you?
Sarah: Good question.
I suppose I don't put really strong boundaries around that when it's really the time. I'm available, I'll have my phone off of silent and text available and we make some agreements around, you know, if you get through the night, I'll call you in the morning. If something happens, call me.
If something happened in the middle of the night, generally I'll give them some instruction and then come early in the morning and help them, you know, at a reasonable hour. It's just being available and taking the call.
Nadine: I imagine that you also can't often be there physically because of distance or whatever.
***
Nadine: How did COVID look for you?
Sarah: Yeah, COVID was very distressing.
Nadine: Understatement.
Sarah: Yeah, just it was. It was pretty distressing and changed everything. It was very hard and our practice got really interrupted and I couldn't do a lot, to be honest. I had to be there just on the phone or on Zoom.
And the story of funerals we're all very familiar with, where there was only 5 people and 10 people. And families saying farewell to people on FaceTime was real and awful and traumatic, and I remember organising funerals and just kind of going home and weeping.
I think what COVID showed us was the power of ritual and ceremony and collective gathering for for mourning and grieving and giving expression to a life. And we took that for granted and then when it was taken away, it was stark.
And I suppose that is a silver lining from it - people now hold very dear and hold as important what they do now for expression around a funeral, a memorial. How they gather, they take it seriously, they take it reverently.
Nadine: Yeah, I think people are in many ways taking their time with each other less for granted. I'm not necessarily optimistic that will last for a very long time.
***
Nadine: My first experience with death was really formative for me, and I wanted to know if there was a formative experience for you that, you know, that made you comfortable in this space?
Sarah: I would go to the death of my godson. And he died just before he turned nine, after a nine-month illness with brain cancer.
Nadine: I'm sorry.
Sarah: Yeah, it was a total immersion into a world that you learn a lot about fast - cancer and treatment and the whole hospital system, and the kind of ricochet that happens through a family and a community.
I was present for his death and present for the aftermath. And when a, you know little child dies, it just amplifies everything. And I was there with my girlfriend, my bestie, and having to kind of navigate really for the first time.
So that was coming up to 13 years ago now and that was very formative. It was searing and again like that panning for gold, there was just pockets of just amazing beauty and community and closeness. And yeah, that was a very challenging time.
Nadine: I'm sure.
***
Anthony: Self-care must be incredibly important in this space.
Sarah: In terms of looking after myself, part of that is an ongoing vigilance to just be well. To be grounded, be well/ I work really hard at not having a lot of drama in my own life.
Anthony: Any pro tips?
Sarah: Well, I'm also a marriage therapist and a relationship therapist! So I've got a kind of harmonious love-filled personal life and a good community around me and my little coven of girlfriends.
So part of it's just staying well and doing, you know, sleeping, eating, exercising, all good self-care like that. I put a lot of energy protection around me, I have to really clear and work out what's my stuff and what is the stuff that I'm carrying that's other people’s.
I do things like breathwork and Reiki and swimming in the ocean and walking on the beach and cuddling my dog. I have supervision every now and then for particularly challenging times, and I've got a range of emotional self-care practices that I do - things like tapping, things like prayer practice.
While I’m not religious, you know, prayer for me is a method of entering into heart communion and meditation and stillness, which I learned when I was working in the hospital system as a non-religious chaplain. People would still want prayer. And so my chaplain superpower is I can make up a prayer for whatever you need.
***
Nadine: How have your belief systems about death evolved with the more and varied work that you do in this space?
Sarah: My belief system just keeps getting added to. I go yes, yes and yes and yes. Wow, oh, great, yes, that too. To the point where my own personal belief is getting a little bit confused now. I'm willing to accept it all, which in a way, in what I do I have to. I'm very much a witness in what is happening for each of my families and I just go in and I immerse and they teach me.
And so my belief is very mixed up and a whirlpool of all sorts of things at the moment. But the things I hold on to strongly are… I think it's all about love. Whatever and whichever belief or religion or practice or spirituality, everything is distilled into love and human connection. And that's my starting place.
Nadine: What gives you comfort?
Sarah: I think what gives me comfort is that on the whole people out there are good and people out there are doing their best. And everyone has someone who loves them and we all have people that we love and everyone's life is important and matters.
You know, I work with families who've lost a baby, and that baby hasn't maybe even taken a breath. And the significance of that life, the profoundness of that event is there for that family for forever, right? There's something really huge about that, you know?
Or someone who has lived an entire life and died at 96, right? And it's to be expected and in some ways, the family really welcome it and are relieved. And then also just the power of the grief of that. It just makes me ponder on just the profoundness of life, like of every single person living. You know that kind of legacy of one person is enormous, I think. Let's not underestimate the power of just one person and living your life - it has enormous value.
Nadine: Yeah, I think one thing that I have learned through researching this podcast is that your work isn’t necessarily about death, it's about life. It's about both those things and like the meeting place between them and the overlaps between them.
Sarah: I think that's a really interesting observation. It almost isn't about the death. The death is just that milli-second, instance, right?
***
Nadine: We've talked about your particular challenges during COVID but I wanted to ask, what other challenges come up?
Sarah: I think one of the challenges is to see the distress that family discord brings. Sometimes death can be a healing portal, right? Things can kind of come together and we find love and connection.
And then we also find crisis and discord in how families communicate. The rifts and feuds that are there in any family get amplified and ugly. And I think that's what I find most challenging, that in amongst the potential for love and gentleness and grace, we have completely opposite experiences where it can be very damaging.
Anthony: How do you navigate that?
Sarah: It's tricky. There are a number of things I do. I hold at the very centre and heart of it, the person who has died, right? They occupy that central space. I understand that I understand nothing, right? And that this is a problem bigger than me and bigger than what I can solve. And every person has their experience in that, that it is true for them, and the feelings that are hard and difficult for them are real.
I don't take sides, I play a really straight bat in terms of just being honest, transparent, direct, with a lot of love. And just really try to get them through this step and then the next step, and keep them on task. And that's the best I can do.
I have this prayer, a little prayer, people might know this prayer. It comes from Ho’oponopono and it's a prayer of healing and forgiveness and it just starts to circulate within my being when I'm in these situations with families and this prayer goes like this:
I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
And I just keep that on repeat inside of me and try and send that out to my families as well.
***
Nadine: So, Sarah., what does a good dad mean to you?
Sarah: Thanks, Nadine, tough question. If you had asked me that 10 years ago, I would've had a very firm idea of what a good death is. These days, it can be anything, right? Who am I to say what a good death is? Every family, every person does it differently.
I have some thoughts about some important elements and this I suppose kind of comes full circle back to why I'm a death doula, why I do end-of-life consulting or death education.
A good death is one that's conscious. We know what's going on here, we know what we're doing, we're present and we're in it and we're engaged. It's collaborative and it's community and it's done with compassion and care. It's done with ritual and ceremony and a sense of sacredness.
Now all of those things can be applied to any which way someone may die, you know - a sudden death, a long progressive death. The actual death itself is sometimes, you know, pretty much out of our control, right? But it's how we are there present in it and what we do.
And so the importance of doing this work is to make death or life skill for us all. We will all do it, we will be exposed to it, and we will all have to take someone through a death, probably. And what I would love to see is people resourced, confident, brave into it, lean into it. Do it as a participant when it's your time but do it with your loved ones when it's their time.
Death is really lonely, right? It can be really lonely and in the end, you do it alone anyway. But we need not make it any lonelier than it needs to be. It should be a community and family endeavour. Your kind of, way of expression that’s true to who you are. Certainly, a life skill we all need.
Sarah: I just invite people to safely enter this space. There's so much richness, so much life, so much you can learn about yourself and the people that you love.
I encourage people to walk closely knowing death is amongst us. To make sure that they live well with that knowledge and that information. Look after your relationships.
Be kind and loving and connected and death won't be so scary.
Nadine: Sarah told me, thank you so much for joining us.
Sarah: It’s been my absolute pleasure, thank you.
Nadine: Thanks again to Sarah Tolmie, perhaps the kindest soul in all of Death Land. I'm off to comfort and nurture some relationships.
***
If this episode has raised issues for you and you'd like to seek mental health support, you can contact Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636 or visit .
Also, Embrace Multicultural Mental Health supports people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Visit for 24/7.
For crisis support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or in an emergency, please call 000.
Grave Matters is an SBS podcast, written and hosted by Anthony Levin and Nadine J. Cohen and produced by Jeremy Wilmot. The SBS team is Caroline Gates, Joel Supple and Max Gosford. If you'd like to get in touch, e-mail audio@sbs.com.au.
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