October 2018 – Round 1 Alumni
August 2020 – Round 8 Student Guide
January 2021 – Round 9 Student Guide
August 2021 – Round 12 Student Guide
July 2022 – End of Life Training Guest Instructor

Born in Mexico City, Lupe Tejada Diaz (She/They) is an End of Life Care Specialist and Death Doula living and working on Coast Salish and Suquamish territories. She is the founder of Doula Damn Thing, an organization dedicated to addressing the racial, socioeconomic, and environmental disparities in modern deathcare. Lupe firmly believes that deathcare and community care are deeply intertwined. She enjoys playing piano, hiking in the forests of Washington state, and curling up with her cats and a good book.

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I became a death doula because I wanted to help people. More than anything, I wanted to offer support to my community in their most vulnerable moments. And I wanted to spread awareness about death positivity and how we can and should care for our planet, even in death!

Since my time in the very first group of students, I have watched this program grow exponentially! The kind of information and support offered by GWG is so unique and made me feel like this was the place for me. I’m so happy to be a part of it! 

I would tell them to go for it! This information isn’t just for those who want to be death care workers, it is information that can help absolutely everyone during a critical point in their lives. 

I agreed to participate because I believe this work is so important! Helping people hold space for death conversations is in my bones. To put it simply, I love it!

August 2020 – Round 8 Alumni Courtney King (she/her) is a professional organizer turned end-of-life logistics specialist. She believes the spaces we inhabit color the experiences we have in them and enjoys helping create those spaces for people in all kinds of transitions. Courtney is a member of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, the International Coaching Federation, and has appeared on an episode of Hoarders, which she doesn’t recommend for anybody.

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Working with people for end of life cleaning and deconstructing folks’ homes in the wake of death, I wanted a deeper understanding of death as it exists in modern society in order to better understand my role in the process.

It is mindblowing in the best way possible. It shows you the ins and outs of the process of dying and death, but in doing so, teaches you a lot about life.

Do it. Lay down your expectations, and do it. Your interest is a sign, do it. We all have gifts to share in this realm, for real, do it.

Because I know there’s so much more to learn from all of you.

April 2020 – Round 6 Alumni
January 2021 – Round 9 Student Guide

My name is Corie McMillan and I am a Queer, Transcendgender lover of music and graffiti art and meditation and prayer with European ancestry (Scottish, Irish & Polish), living on unceded Lisjan Ohlone land in Huichin, also known as Oakland, California. My spouse Batul & I have lived in the same home for the past 13 years and I support them in tending to our gardens and making medicine for the people. We share this space with our 2 cats, Buddy & Banjo, a wild cat that we call Hula, an abundance of plantitas y hierbas as well as many raccoons, opossums, hummingbirds, monarch butterflies, bees and a cute little skunk that keep the outside of our home buzzing with LIFE and DEATH.

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I was first inspired to seek out a training space (ultimately landing here with Alua at Going with Grace) as a Death Doula following a period of time when several of my loved ones died in a matter of a few months. My Grandma died after a rapid decline in her health in January of 2016 and I was heavily involved in taking care of her during those last few weeks. During her death process, I realized the capacity that I have in being with death! I stayed calm and reflective, even in the most chaotic of moments. I was able to be an anchor for my family as they rode the wild waves in their emotional bodies. I was able to tend to the spiritual environment of the space to create as much ease and comfort as was possible. In my self-reflection afterward, I realized and acknowledged that this is a space that I could step into and be in service with a sense of empowered compassion.

September 2019 – Round 4 Alumni
June 2020 – Round 7 Student Guide

Foodie, shutterbug, avid walker, sister, daughter, aunt, minister, musician, creative muse committed to empowering people to LIVE and have a better relationship with death and dying.

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A desire for personal healing and the realization that in doing so I am also able to help others. I enjoy marrying my gifts and abilities along with skills and experience to help and guide others. I deeply resonated with Alua’s energy and passion for talking about death. I was excited that she was a Black woman comfortable in her own skin in this field. For me, helping the Black community to establish better practices and attitudes around death is important.

January 2021 – Round 9 Alumni

Kelly Fabiano is life coach and death doula who recently left her job in Corporate America to follow her heart. God help her. She’s passionate about holding space for others and believes the dying deserve to leave this world with as much agency as possible.

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Go for it!

August 2021 – Round 12 Alumni

Brianna L. Hernández Baurichter is a Chicana artist, curator, educator, and death doula guided by socially-engaged practices. Her background includes experience working in community organizations, gallery, museum, and higher education settings, and as a consultant with public health researchers.

In the studio, Brianna creates installations through several mediums including large-scale charcoal drawings, video art, sculpture, and performances, each incorporating a high level of physicality and movement to reveal knowledge held within the body. Brianna’s ongoing artwork focuses on the experience of providing end-of-life care, grieving processes, and mourning rituals based on her lived experiences, cultural research, and collaborations with others in the field. In addition to formal artworks, her practice offers workshops and takeaway resources for viewers to self-educate through the safety of the creative process.

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Having been my mother’s caregiver in the final year of her life, I had to learn on the fly how to be a caregiver from a medical, logistical, and emotional perspective for someone who was actively dying. Being that this person was my mother, I was even more overwhelmed by each decision that had to be learned and made in the moment. In the year following her death I read everything I could to support myself as a griever and to process the trauma of caring for a dying loved one. I’ve been an artist my entire life, but after this all happened, I began making artwork about my experience for personal healing as well as a way to connect with others in my shoes. My reading and research expanded as time went on to understand more about the systems all of this experience occurred within and I found resources to share with others that might help ease their situations. Eventually this led me to learning about death doulas and how supportive they can be in making end-of-life planning and final moments as peaceful and aligned with ones values as possible. It didn’t take me long after that to realize that the work Alua was doing through Going with Grace was the right place for me to learn more and expand how I could support others both through my art practice and as a death doula myself.

June 2020 – Round 7 Alumni
January 2021 – Round 9 Student Guide

Born and raised in The Bahamas, I’ve always had an affinity for making space. I was considered a very strange and sensitive child whose imagination seemed to get the best of her. I don’t think the fact that I was talkative helped much either – I was the girl on whose report card: “She is very intelligent, but she talks too much” was ALWAYS written! (If they could only see me now) 😀

Nothing much has changed, really (and I think that’s a good thing). That creativity has blossomed with compassion and empathy, my eccentric ways have established me as an individual who dances (very off rhythm) to the beat of her own drum, and my storytelling skills have soothed many grieving hearts. I am the Owner & Creative Director of Cherish Memory Boutique, and I love the journey that I have unapologetically set out on.

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I was simply trying to be what I needed. I researched for years even though I couldn’t quite express what I was looking for. I did not know what to call it, but I needed to find it. In a moment of complete exasperation I decided that I really needed to figure out what I wanted to do, and I realized that since we were in the beginning of an epidemic (2020) and there were so many online opportunities, I might as well had found something I was passionate about. I came across Going With Grace as I searched, and Alua’s story resonated so much with mine that I knew I had to sign up.

January 2021 – Round 9 Alumni
June 2021 – Round 11 Student Guide

Resham Mantri is a death worker, writer, seller of vintage textiles, agitator, mother of two, Queens-born, living in Brooklyn, daughter/aunt/friend, of Mumbai, India, human. They believe in the life force of grief and queer love.

They publish personal essays, poems, and interviews with other artists. They hold a law degree and worked years ago as a lawyer in NYC for Legal Aid Society representing children and teenagers in Family Court. They have a degree in computer science and worked for IBM many moons ago. Their mother programmed computers back in the 70s and 80s until she retired in 2009 and Resham has been thinking about the possibilities and pitfalls of technology for a while now. She spends a lot of time with her dog, plants, and thinking about love.

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Two impactful family deaths, my grandmother’s in India and my own father’s in Brooklyn both within a short period of time of each other, broke me open and I was ready to receive it. But I was also left so angry and guilty at what we experienced in the medical industrial establishment. I felt it could have all been so different if we had a death doula at the start of my father’s diagnosis. I could not believe that I had to ask for palliative care support in the hospital. I just had no clue that there was another way, all I knew was that this couldn’t possibly be it. A friend recommended a death doula at the very end of my father’s life, this person along with an amazing funeral director, made me see the possibilities for healing in a fully supportive death experience. This was what led me to want to explore offering this to others and I found Going with Grace through Alua, who had the energy and life spirit that called out to me during the end of 2020.

August 2021 – Round 12 Alumni

Meital Yaniv (b. 1984, Tel-Aviv, israel) is learning how to be in a human form. They do things with words, with moving n still images, with threads, with bodies in front of bodies, with the Earth. They are a death doula tending to a prayer for the liberation of the land of Palestine and the lands of our bodies. They are learning to listen to the Waters, birdsongs, caretakers, and ancestors as they walk as a guest on the lands of the Tongva-Kizh Nation, Luiseño, and Cahuilla peoples and ways.

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September 2019 – Round 4 Alumni

With a background in classical music performance, Kathy is able to use the sensitive, discerning, and nuanced listening skills of a musician in her practice. Kathy is a graduate of the Northwestern Academy of Homeopathy in the Twin Cities where she is now a guest lecturer, mentor, and clinical instructor. She holds the CCH credential (Certified Classical Homeopath) through the Council for Homeopathic Certification, a national organization. Kathy is dedicated to the wellness of her clients; she is committed to the journey and process that takes place both inside and outside of the consultation space for each individual person. She is passionate about end of life care, homeopathy and life coaching, and is energized by the opportunity for personal growth that can be achieved through this work.

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August 2021 – Round 12 Alumni

Owner of Spirit Wellness Institute, Catheryn Schoenfarber is an LMT and Shamanic Practitioner. Catheryn has taken multiple wellness businesses from seed to success over the last 20 years and enjoys her current endeavor as the owner of a trades school for the healing arts. Catheryn is enlivened by helping students discover and develop their gifts!

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The program provided a safe and well held container in which to lean into my curiosity about death. It helped me to discover and develop a sense of direction with death work while correcting many of the misconceptions I had regarding the industry.

I agreed to become a student guide because, simply put, it is needed. I teach for a living and see the value in this service and wanted to give back after having such a positive experience in the program. I also think I have several capacities that will lend to me being good at it. YAY! And it will continue my own humble path of learning. Win win win…

October 2018 – Round 1 Alumni

Chelsea Waves has been swimming deeper into the depths of death since her mother chose suicide in 2017. Experiencing the loss of her mother gave her insight into what death can look like if we are not prepared for it and made her a vocal advocate for medical-aid-in-dying and conservation burial. She is a Death Doula, lucid dreamer and activist committed to alleviating suffering by offering end-of-life support that empowers individuals to contemplate their own unique death.

Chelsea is dedicated to creating a compassionate and open container in which the dying individual feels comfortable navigating and exploring their own emotions, values, and desires around their death, with the intention of co-creating a transformative and peaceful experience in which each soul can be present with their death.

She lives part-time in the rocky mountains of Northern New Mexico and part-time between the mountains and the sea in Santa Barbara, CA.

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When my mother died from suicide in 2017, I found myself lost in the world of death. Tying up loose ends (planning her funeral, figuring out her financials, cleaning out her home and storage, etc.) while also in the process of grieving was very challenging for me. I would find myself wanting to go out in nature or cry in bed or spend time with my friends and family and instead found myself taking care of errands or thinking about what needed to be done next or thinking about how tragic it was that she had died alone. My mother’s death planted a seed that the experience of dying and what we leave behind for others could be a more conscious process because as someone put it, “there are only two types of people: those who are dead and those who will soon be dead”. This realization that we each have the opportunity to live more present and joyous lives by contemplating our own death and creating our own intentions around our deaths prompted me to search for a death doula program. It just happened to be “right timing” and I found round one of the Going with Grace training program. Looking back, participating in this course was one of my ways of grieving and processing my mother’s death – which I am grateful for. The knowledge that I have gained from this course is priceless and the support from the Going with Grace team and community has encouraged me to continue on this path of joyful service.

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon!