Almost a century ago, public health agencies began mandating that milk be pasteurized for human consumption. We’ve been fighting about it ever since.

Many, many scientific studies have shown that the process of pasteurization — heating milk to 161° F for 15 seconds and then rapidly cooling it — significantly kills off harmful bacteria, viruses, and parasites and reduces the risk of transmitting foodborne illnesses.

Those illnesses — including listeria, E. coli, salmonella, tuberculosis, and bird flu — can be fatal for children, the elderly, and immunocompromised people.

Raw milk advocates steadfastly claim that pasteurization strips milk of beneficial bacteria and enzymes, but without evidence: Public health organizations — including the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — say that claims of raw milk’s unique nutritional benefits are unsupported.

While the FDA has banned the interstate sale of raw milk since 1987, some members of Congress hope to lift that ban (a House bill to do so is currently in committee). Meanwhile, 18 states are considering more than 40 bills to make it easier to buy and sell raw milk.

Sales of raw milk have spiked as “food freedom” activists argue for their right to make personal health decisions, and wellness influencers promote raw milk as “nature’s superfood.” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has championed raw milk and — before joining the Trump administration — vowed to loosen federal restrictions on interstate sales.

Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Anna Merlan, a senior reporter at Mother Jones, about why raw milk is having a moment, the arguments for and against drinking it, and why advocates are disappointed in Kennedy’s lack of action on raw milk.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Raw milk is having a moment right now in the United States. What is going on with raw milk?

There is definitely an increasing interest in raw milk, especially the idea of increased raw milk legalization and selling raw milk across state lines, which I think even under the second Trump administration and RFK Jr. is not super likely.

There are 40-plus bills across 18 states that have to do with raw dairy and raw cheese. Raw milk is legal to some degree in 43 states, but it varies widely. In some places, like California, where I live, you can go to the store and buy raw milk. In other places, you can access it through what’s called a herd share, which is a legal agreement where consumers have access to a milking animal or a herd, and they can buy or get the milk directly from the farmer. In other places, raw milk is only legal as pet food, but obviously there’s nothing stopping people if they really insist on it from buying and drinking milk labeled as pet food. 

DC is one of the places where raw milk is illegal. In Rhode Island, it is totally illegal, except you can get raw goat milk with a prescription from a doctor. It’s also illegal in Hawaii. But in most places in the US, you’re going to be able to get raw milk in some form.

Remind us why we decided to pasteurize our milk, or what the benefits were?

One of the first big pushes for pasteurization of milk came in the 1930s after the discovery that raw milk could transmit tuberculosis, which was killing a lot of babies. There was a pretty direct relationship between more and more places requiring pasteurization and infant mortality rates going down. And so after that, it was pretty clear to most people in most public health bodies that this was a good idea. 

They were saying basically, “Pasteurize your milk and we will keep more kids alive.” And then since that medical breakthrough, we’ve been trying to dial it back. Why are we trying to dial it back? And who’s doing the dialing?

Pretty much since pasteurization became a widespread thing, there has been opposition to it. And the raw milk movement has always argued that raw milk is better for you, that it’s more natural. 

For instance, when I talked to Mark McAfee, who’s the founder and CEO of Raw Farm, the biggest raw milk producer in the country, he told me that raw milk makes asthma go away, which is not true, according to public health experts, virologists, and asthma experts. You’ll see arguments that raw milk is good for allergies, that it has beneficial enzymes or bacteria, and this is pretty much the argument that’s been made since the raw milk movement organized and took force — that raw milk inherently has nutrients and good qualities that are stripped from pasteurized milk.

Do these groups that are advocating for more raw milk hew to a certain political party?

Historically, raw milk, like anti-vaccine ideas, cut equally across the right and the left. I grew up in a pretty blue part of New Mexico and would certainly see raw milk being sold and discussed, though not the way that it is now. But a lot of the places that you’re seeing raw milk legislation especially picking up are red states, because of ideas around government regulation and health freedom.

And of course, red state, blue state, crunchy or libertarian, distrustful of government, wherever it might be, you might find some affinity in our current secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who last year famously did a shot of raw milk at the White House.

He sure did. He did a little shooter of raw milk to celebrate the publication of the [Make America Health Again] report, which was meant to be his big capstone piece of writing, presenting solutions for chronic disease, and was full of AI slop and fake citations and which you will notice they don’t talk about very much anymore.

Did that quash his attempt to normalize raw milk at the federal level?

This is what’s super interesting: Before Kennedy was in office as HHS secretary, he was famously really bullish on raw milk. He had this famous tweet in 2024 where he talked about all the things that the FDA was going to stop suppressing under his leadership. He said the FDA’s war on public health is about to end, and he listed all these things, including raw milk. But since then, much to the frustration of big players in the raw milk industry, there actually hasn’t been any federal action to make raw milk more legal or to make it legal across state lines. Kennedy actually hasn’t done anything on that. And Mark McAfee told me that he can’t get Kennedy to return his calls.

One thing that has happened instead, though, is that the Trump administration has suddenly been trumpeting their emphasis on whole milk. You might’ve seen this a few months ago. They were saying, “We’re bringing whole milk back to the schools.” Whole milk is no longer illegal in America, which it never was. A lot of their language around whole milk echoes the language around raw milk that you see among raw milk advocates. But they actually have not talked about raw milk at all. 

You can speculate why this might’ve happened — if this is a liability issue, if there are still people at the CDC and the FDA who are like, ‘It would be a really bad idea for the federal government to promote this’ — but I would say that for raw milk and raw dairy advocates, the fact that the Trump administration has not been on their side is clearly a big disappointment.

Are public health officials other than the secretary of health and human services worried about raw milk?

Earlier this year, an infant died in New Mexico from listeria that public health officials there think was probably linked to the infant’s mom drinking it during pregnancy. And there have been a bunch of foodborne illness outbreaks. I think this is a concern for people because raw milk can carry E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, things that can make you really, really sick.

One, obviously, is the increasing availability of raw milk in various places. Another concern is that it is being marketed by health influencers and other people with big social media followings as a miracle cure in a very simplistic way. And it is especially being marketed to parents as a cure-all for children, which is concerning because raw milk and dairy are especially risky for infants, immune-compromised people, and elderly people.

An illness like E. coli that could be serious, but that you would make it through, potentially, as an adult, is incredibly serious for a child and can lead to this thing called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which has sickened and killed children. 

The raw milk industry tends to talk about this idea that raw milk is safe if you trust your farmer. But when you talk to a virologist, they will tell you that no matter how well you know your farmer, how much you think you trust the dairy, if you’re not pasteurizing your milk, you’re going to be at more risk of common foodborne pathogens. So you can find the farm to be delightful in every way, and it will not prevent illness. 

Ideally, we would not be continuing to litigate really well-established pieces of science, and we could move on to other stuff. But instead, we are talking about raw milk again.

There’s a page on the FDA right now with counterarguments to these common claims that people make about raw milk — for instance, that it contains beneficial bacteria or enzymes or something. There’s very, very good evidence about raw milk’s actual dangers and risks.

As global concern about an Ebola outbreak in central Africa grows, hundreds of Kenyans have taken to the streets to protest a plan by the Trump administration to send American citizens who have been exposed to the virus to Kenya, rather than bringing them back to the US. Two people have been shot and killed during the protests. 

The outbreak started in the Democratic Republic of Congo last month and has since spread to Uganda. There are currently no confirmed cases in Kenya, which shares a border with Uganda.

Kenyans are demanding to know why the US wants to send Ebola patients to their country, and why their government gave the US the initial approval to build a 50-bed quarantine facility at the Laikipia Air Base in central Kenya.

For now, the plan is on hold after a court ruling in Kenya; on Tuesday, the court extended the suspension to at least June 23 and also ordered the Kenyan government to provide details of its arrangement with the Trump administration, including financial agreements and measures put in place to protect Kenyans.

Between cuts to American foreign aid in the region, the sheer aggressiveness of this strain of the virus, and conspiracy theories that threaten public health workers, many public health workers fear that this Ebola outbreak has become a perfect storm.

To understand what’s going on — and why the US is trying to involve Kenya — Today, Explained co-host Noel King spoke to Sabrina Siddiqui, a national politics reporter for the Wall Street Journal who helped to break the story. They discussed the reactions from Kenyans and public health experts and what would happen if Kenya continues to rebuff the administration.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

What is the plan?

The administration has been trying to set up a quarantine facility in Kenya at an air force base where they would essentially house Americans who have been exposed to Ebola and anyone who also tests positive.

They’re describing it as somewhat of a tent hospital. But there are various plans underway for also adding, if needed, isolation units and biocontainment units. That is, of course, if there are people who truly get sick or need further care. 

I think they see this as an opportunity to have a place for Americans to quarantine while they’re evaluated, and they have deployed public health officers from the United States to assist with these efforts. They have also said that if Americans test positive, they would only perhaps stay at this facility for a couple days before being sent to another country. And they’re looking at facilities in Europe that could potentially accommodate Americans if they were to truly get sick.

What the US is saying is: We don’t want you coming back into the US. You look at the reaction to this here at home, and there’s a lot of shock. Ebola outbreaks have happened before. This is a very dangerous, dangerous virus. How does the US usually handle this when our citizens are affected?

That’s actually been very striking about the administration’s response to this particular outbreak. In previous outbreaks, Americans who had been exposed to Ebola or who had tested positive were allowed to return home and they were monitored and cared for at quarantine facilities here in the United States. And we do have biocontainment units as well. During this recent hantavirus outbreak, American passengers who were aboard the cruise ship where that outbreak occurred have been quarantining at one of those biocontainment units in Nebraska. 

So it’s frankly been bizarre to a lot of public health officials and epidemiologists that Americans would not be allowed to come home. And it just appears to be the case that the Trump administration is taking a very hard line against letting anyone who is known to have Ebola to be allowed back here in the United States. What they’re saying is that they do not want any Ebola cases to exist in the United States during this outbreak.

So the plan is: send Americans to Kenya. And what is the status of that plan?

The Trump administration announced that the US and Kenya had reached an agreement to stand up this quarantine facility for Americans in Kenya. And then a Kenyan high court put a temporary hold on the Trump administration’s plan to set up that facility. So right now, the plan is very much in limbo. As of now, it’s not clear if the plan is even going to move forward.

How did people in Kenya respond when they were told the United States wants to send its citizens to you?

One of the lawyers who is part of the legal group that is arguing this case said, “Is Kenya being reduced to a dumping site?” I think that really captures the mood of many Kenyans who learned about this plan through news reports, and were critical of their government for agreeing to allow Americans who had been exposed to Ebola to be rerouted to Kenya when there are no known or suspected cases of Ebola in Kenya. 

There are obviously a lot of concerns, including from medical groups in Kenya that there could perhaps be an outbreak in Kenya that stems from bringing Americans to the country who’ve been exposed to the virus.

Does anyone know why [the administration chose] Kenya?

The administration said that they were looking for somewhere in the region that is unaffected by the outbreak, where they don’t believe there is as high a risk of spread and that is not too far so that people could get there quickly. Obviously there are also politics involved and it seems like they were able to come to some kind of agreement with the government, even if it’s been halted by the courts. 

Again, this is temporary for people who actually get sick. So it doesn’t even look like it was necessarily a long-term plan in terms of how they plan to actually use this facility, because at the same time that they’re saying Americans can quarantine in Kenya, they also said that anyone who truly gets sick would be evacuated to a tertiary care center and that they’re currently talking to partners in Europe to try and identify where sick patients can be taken. 

These are just some of the questions that a lot of people have around the administration’s plans, which they haven’t been terribly forthcoming about, and which have drawn criticism not just from people in Kenya, but also from public health experts here at home who simply do not understand why they would not allow Americans to return to their home country.

Let me ask you what you’ve been hearing from public health experts, because there is, from the non-expert’s point of view, a knee-jerk sense in this. It’s: Ebola is dangerous, keep people where they are, or keep people elsewhere, so that they don’t bring Ebola into the United States. 

You said public health experts say this does not make sense. Why doesn’t it make sense? What do they tell you?

I think there are a couple of things that are at play. One is that public health experts do say that it is the responsibility of the United States government to take care of its own people and to allow them to return home so that they could receive the highest quality of care and that they have these state-of-the-art facilities specifically designed for outbreaks and viruses like Ebola.

I also think that there is the component of mental health, and that, in addition to just needing to receive the appropriate care, that people should have access to their support system, that they should be allowed to be in closer proximity to their families if they were to get sick. And people see that as a moral responsibility that the United States has to afford Americans that opportunity. 

There’s also just the fact that in previous outbreaks, Americans were brought home, and the Trump administration has not provided a medical rationale for why they’re so opposed to Americans coming back home other than saying that time is of the essence when someone has Ebola. Well, time was also of the essence in prior outbreaks, and the US did not stop Americans from returning home.

You’ve been covering the hantavirus outbreak as well. And I wonder whether you’re seeing a pattern here in the way this administration is responding to these public health crises where the public is inclined to freak out a bit and public health experts might have a different idea of what needs to happen.

Well, here’s what’s really fascinating about covering the hantavirus outbreak as well as the Ebola outbreak. The Trump administration has been willing to embrace these very aggressive quarantine and isolation measures despite the fact that this administration is full of people at the highest levels of leadership who were so critical of what they saw as heavy-handed social distancing and isolation guidelines during the Covid-19 pandemic.

And they’re going even further. There were a couple of passengers who wanted to leave the Nebraska facility where those who’ve been exposed to hantavirus have been quarantining. And the acting director of the CDC, Jay Bhattacharya, signed an order forcing them to stay there. And now, as those passengers are reaching the end of their quarantine period — these are those who are exposed to hantavirus, who have been asymptomatic and do not have hantavirus — they’re now returning to their home states. The Trump administration is essentially insisting on 24/7 monitoring and not allowing them to leave their homes.

So, oddly enough, it’s a very heavy-handed way that the Trump administration has responded to these outbreaks, even though they were the ones who used criticisms of public health institutions and of the scientific community during Covid as a way to appeal to voters who are frustrated by these exact kinds of guidelines and rules during that pandemic.

What are the stakes here? What happens if Kenya says, no, President Donald Trump, we’re just not going to allow this?

Well, that’s actually going to be a really interesting moment if it comes to pass because it is not entirely clear if the Trump administration has a plan B.

It just seems like this entire plan came together very quickly. Even the public health officers who were deployed to Kenya when they were called upon for this assignment only received about three days of training. And that’s something that some public health officials said simply isn’t enough for people who are going to go and try to staff a facility where you have this rare strain of a deadly virus. 

When the Trump administration is talking about whether or not they would be able to send Americans to other facilities in Europe, they still haven’t identified where those care centers would be, which just signals that they haven’t really thought through what would happen if they are not allowed to stand up this facility in Kenya. And I suspect that while they’re still negotiating with the Europeans, it’s very likely that people in Europe would have the same reaction as those in Kenya: “Why are you sending potentially sick Americans here rather than allowing them to return home?”

Death doulas, also called end-of-life doulas, wear many hats. In helping patients and their families prepare for a peaceful end of life, they can offer solace and companionship, handle logistics, mediate with medical staff, and more.

As my colleague Anna North reported recently, public interest in the job is growing. Celebrities like actor Nicole Kidman and director Chloé Zhao have spoken about training to become death doulas, and the hospital drama The Pitt recently featured a death doula character.

“The interest from celebrities mirrors interest that we’re seeing from the population as a whole,” North told Today, Explained co-host Noel King. “There’s been a rising interest in death doulas in recent years, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic began, when so many people were forced to encounter death at the same time.”

Noel spoke with North and a death doula, Jane K. Callahan, for a recent episode of Today, Explained.

Callahan, who works in Durham, North Carolina, and wrote A Death Doula’s Guide to a Meaningful End, shared the experiences that made her want to be a death doula, what the job entails, and how the “death-positive” movement encourages us to acknowledge our inevitable demise and prepare for the best death we can imagine for ourselves.

Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Why do you do this work?

In 2009, I got a call that my mother was in the hospital. She would end up dying two weeks later. I was 27 years old. And that was my first exposure to anything involving death and dying. And during those two weeks, I realized how broken this healthcare system is when it comes to helping people die versus fixing them. 

I didn’t understand what was happening to my mother’s body, because I had no knowledge of how the body dies. It was hard to get a direct answer from a doctor. In fact, no one told me until toward the end that she was dying. I was waiting for her to be discharged. 

I sat with that for a couple of years, and, eventually, I got pregnant, and I had my son. And when I gave birth to my son, I did not have a birth doula. I didn’t really understand what that was. A lot of things went wrong. So, I started researching birth doulas and realized that would’ve really helped. That’s how I found out that there are death doulas, which are based on the birth doula model. I realized those were all the things that were missing in the last two weeks of my mother’s life. So, I attended a training, and I started volunteering with hospice, and I’ve been doing that for eight years.

Do you think that you are more comfortable with death than most people?

I think I’ve gotten comfortable with being uncomfortable, which is really the main skill of being a doula. We’re not untouched by the work we do. I have moments where losing someone I’ve worked with is very hard, and watching them suffer and die is very hard. But you start to accept the reality of it through learning how to sit with discomfort.

Do you think that being in close proximity to death changes the way you think about being alive?

Absolutely. In Bhutanese culture, they’re encouraged to think about death five times a day. Do I think it’s mentally healthy to just spend your entire day every day thinking about death? No, that’s not healthy. It’s also not really possible. But, I think being consistently aware of the fact that we’re not here for very long, and that it can end at any time — today, even — makes you appreciate what you have. 

Since I’ve started doing this work, I have found myself being a lot more present in my everyday life and appreciating small things. Definitely more gratitude and more awareness.

I think that one of the many things that freaks us out about death is the finality of it. The sense of, “Oh, I will never see this person again.” 

I wonder whether you have ideas about where we go after we die and if there’s something in there that you find comforting.

Yes, but I will say, as a disclaimer, doulas are trained not to answer that question. When a client asks you, “Do you believe in an afterlife?” you should really reflect it back on them and say, “Why is that important to you?” 

When someone is scared and unsure, maybe even desperate, they see doulas as a guide, and your answer has an influence. And doulas are not meant to influence people. Doulas are meant to facilitate what someone wants. By sharing my opinion directly with a client about what I believe, there’s potential there to influence them and their journey towards the end of life. And so, I try to steer the conversation away from my beliefs, because, really, what I’m there for is them, and their beliefs, and their values, and goals. 

But, I will say, before I started this work, I was a hardcore atheist. I am not anymore. I am not going to pretend I have any idea what happens, but I’ve seen enough in the dying process and in death itself that there’s something I just can’t put my finger on. But I just cannot say that there’s nothing.

What is it that’s making you think that?

You know, when someone is in what we call active dying — which, by the way, can last up to two weeks, dying can be a long process — the person looks different. It’s the same person. Their body’s still working to a different degree obviously, but something looks different. Something feels different. 

And there’s a point where someone loses consciousness, and you can just feel, and I know this is not very scientific, but you can just feel like they’re halfway somewhere else. And right before the moment of death, there’s almost like a brightening of the person, kind of like this clarity in appearance is the best way I could explain it. 

I don’t want to say glowing, but when you see someone who’s in love, and they just look different — it’s kind of like that. And after they die, in those minutes, their face has not changed at all. They’ve just died, but something looks and feels different. 

And do you find that comforting to a degree?

I think there’s always going to be a fear if the light switch turns off and there’s nothing. But I see that as kind of a win-win situation, because if there’s nothing, then I’m not going to know what I’m missing. And if there’s something, then, great.

What’s the best part of this work, and what’s the worst part?

The best part of this work is the huge difference that doulas can make for patients and families at the end of life. Losing someone you love and losing your own life is sad. Sometimes, it’s even tragic, but when a doula is involved early enough in the process, it does not become a trauma. And that is absolutely what is happening to families without death doula care.

The thing that I don’t like about this work is, because there’s not enough awareness of us, because people are referred to hospice way too late, I’m often called at the 11th hour when a family is in crisis, and there’s only so much I can do to help. 

That’s hard, because I’m very aware of how differently that could have gone if there had been a more timely referral to hospice, if there had not been high levels of denial.

What would it look like for this, in your view, to be better?

I think that our healthcare system is focused on curing and fixing, and doctors will internalize death as a medical failure. We have to shift how we care for someone when they’ve reached the end of the road. We’re already seeing that shift in the growing presence of palliative care, which is a great field.

As far as working with a doula, doulas are not covered by insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid. And so, that means doulas either work pro bono or offer a sliding scale, or they only serve the people who can afford a doula. And that can exacerbate the division we’re seeing with the haves and the have-nots in having a good death.

Are you able to make a living doing this? Are you pro bono? How does your life work?

I do charge sometimes, if the family has sufficient funds. I don’t charge a lot of the time. And that is a personal choice, and I’m acknowledging I have the ability to do that. 

There are people who can make a living off this. I would say that’s mostly possible in large metropolitan areas where there’s a huge number of people. I think that’s far less possible in smaller towns. Only so many people are dying. Only so many dying people know about a doula or want a doula. And only so many of those people can afford one.

What’s it like to get trained as a death doula? Do you end up with a certificate or a degree?

There’s pros and cons to that. Right now, there is no national standard. There are not even state standards for death doula work, and there is no formal or formally recognized licensure. That’s part of why we’re not reimbursed right now.

What you’re seeing is you have a couple of major organizations who offer trainings across the country, and then, increasingly, you’re seeing a lot of death doula schools pop up online. 

These courses vary in their content, and their quality, and in how much they cost. Every curriculum has its own content. There are things some curriculums touch on that others may not. Some people will take the training and immediately market themselves as doulas to their community. But there’s no clear pathway to hands-on mentorship, or apprenticeship, or anything like that.

Can you tell me about someone that you’ve worked with, someone who stands out in your mind?

I’ve been doing this for eight years, so, a lot of people. I think there was one family that I learned a lot from, and that’s primarily because they engaged me early enough, which is not as common. 

It was two adult children, and they reached out to me. Their mother had terminal cancer. She was still being treated with chemo. She had some other health issues, and her teams were not speaking to each other. She was low income, and there were issues with her housing. There were issues with her being able to get transportation to her chemo appointments. Both of her adult children were working full time. One was dipping into the 401k to pay for mom’s care. Another one took a second job driving Uber at night to pay for mom’s care. And there was tension within the family. 

And so, we come in and, as doulas, we can do some of the logistical stuff: Do you have your advanced directives? And then we worked on logistical issues, like “let’s find ways for you to get transportation to your appointments.”

Once she enrolled in hospice — and this is a very common misunderstanding with families — most people get home hospice, which means they die in their own homes, and the hospice team comes to them. Many people think that that means 24/7 care. It does not. A nurse will come to your house, toward the end, one hour a day. The other 23 hours are on the family, who have no caregiver training. And if they don’t have money for that, then there’s a problem. 

And then also creating what we call a vigil plan or a death plan. I talked to the dying woman about what kind of environment she would want: “Well, I love country music.” So we made sure we had her favorite country musicians playing. Any kind of scents? She loved roses, so we had a rose candle. She wanted fuzzy socks and a fuzzy blanket. She really liked that feeling for her comfort. We talked about, “do you want to be touched?” “Yes, hold my hand, but don’t touch my feet.” 

Some people want all their friends and family coming and going, and laughing, and telling stories, and looking at photos, whereas other people, like this woman, said, “I want my dignity, and when I start going into active dying, I really just want these couple of people around me. I don’t want anyone else coming in and out.” 

It’s really about giving what control is left in these situations to the dying person. And it’s also about avoiding panic and chaos by thinking ahead and talking these things through. If I’m having a conversation with you, then you’ve never died before, so you may not know what to think about and what to ask. You don’t know what you don’t know. And doulas who have that experience know how to help you think about planning for the most peaceful death possible. 

It’s so cool how much you learn about people. Some people want everybody coming in and out, and talking, and laughing. And other people, I imagine, find that exhausting. People are very different in life. And it is just so cool to hear you talk about how different people are in death, as well.

Yeah, I have my whole death plan. I want lots of plants around me, because I like plants. And then, have you ever been really sick with the flu or cold, and you wake up in the middle of the night ,and there’s no sense of time and it’s just horrible? Well, I want to have Christmas lights, because I associate those with comfort and coziness.

The thing is, it asks us to have an imagination about our own death. And that’s really challenging for some people. And doulas, a skilled doula will be able to help someone open that door at a pace that works for them.

One of the values of doulas outside of patient work is this public education about, “Hey, we do have to think about these things if we want the best for ourselves.” This is the death-positive movement. That’s what it’s referred to. Educate yourself, have these conversations, normalize talking with your parents about what they want at the end of life instead of guessing. 

The death-positive movement isn’t asking people to be excited and happy about dying. All it is asking people to do is understand that this is an inevitability. It is part of being a human being. And you can also still be scared, and you can also still grieve the fact that this ends one day. You can have both. And I think I exist in both.