You don't choose death work. Death work chooses you.

When I first heard that, I wrote it on the first page of my new death doula training journal. It spoke to me.

It spoke to me because I had received a calling.

Now, I realize that sounds dramatic. In fact, if you had told me a few years ago that you had been "called" to a purpose, I might have smiled politely while not really understanding the experience.

But then it happened to me.

Not all at once. There was no burning bush. No lightning bolt. No booming voice from the heavens announcing, "Tracia, your destiny awaits."

Instead, it arrived while supporting a friend through an unexpected loss.

Her grief was overwhelming, as grief often is. While she struggled to process a world that no longer made sense, I found myself handling the practical realities that death leaves behind. Phone calls. Paperwork. Decisions. Logistics. The endless list of things that somehow still need attention when your heart has been shattered.

What surprised me wasn't that I could do those things.

What surprised me was how deeply meaningful it felt to do them.

By carrying some of that burden, I was giving her something priceless: the space to grieve. The space to simply survive the worst days of her life without also having to become a project manager.

For the first time, I saw how much peace can come from having someone walk beside you through the practical side of loss.

And it occurred to me that there must be others who need the freedom of that same support.

Looking back, the signs were there. People trusted me with things they wouldn't tell others. During moments of conflict, uncertainty, loss, and change, I often became the person sitting at the kitchen table helping make sense of what came next.

I didn't have a title for it then.

Now I do.

I am a death doula.