Saint Angela. Or, why I became a death doula.

My grandmother was a saint. No really. A saint. The woman could do no wrong in my eyes. So when she called me on a random Sunday in August of 2005 to ask me why in the world I didn't show up to the pasta crank party with my cousins, it is shameful to admit that I talked to her with too much sass and a little disrespect.

Let me back up to the pasta crank party. Apparently several of my cousins put together this thing and I was never invited. When Gram (aka Grandma, aka Nonnie) called me that Sunday, she asked why I wasn't there. I told her that I knew nothing about it and that if I had, I absolutely would have been there. She said she would make sure that type of thing would never happen again, and, both of us huffy and SO Italian, we hung up.

Later on that night I got a call from one of my brothers who told me that Gram was in the hospital and I should probably head up there. I don't remember the drive, I don't remember much of the time at the hospital that evening other than not being able to see her, but what I do remember is that phone call, and how borderline rude I was. I do, however, remember the drive home, bargaining with God, apologizing to whoever would listen, and putting my Mirage in park and just sitting there in the parking lot sobbing. It was also the first time I had ever heard Mercy Me's "I Can Only Imagine."

The following week was a bit of a blur with hospital visits, updates that changed by the hour, questions of which came first, the stroke or the fall in the bathroom and which one caused which, the many many calls and plans of bringing people in town. Ultimately, there was no hope of my grandmother coming back to consciousness, and as per her wishes, she was brought back home to spend whatever time she had left in the house just a 45 second drive from the house I grew up in. Set up in a hospital bed with people in and out, I remember very clearly my father saying that she wouldn't have wanted to be on display that way. But she was, and as the days went on and her time drew near, we all got to visit her. People flowed in and out of the room while others hung out in the kitchen eating her food. At any given time there were a dozen people in the house except at night, when my father and his sisters rotated standing sentry. Hospice was called in, and it was the same compassionate and lovely nurse who cared for my grandfather in his final days, nearly 20 years earlier.

We each got to spend our own time with her, and I will keep my words for my memory. Just suffice to say it was an apology.

On Gram's last day, I remember many of us in her room listening to her take labored breaths and the nurse saying the end was near. I remember running into the front room and telling everyone in there to come quickly. I don't know if it's just my memory slipping but for some reason I want to say that someone thought maybe she had woken up and that's why I grabbed them. Either way, once we were all in the room, in typical Catholic fashion we began reciting the Lord's prayer as we gathered, four generations of us, in a circle around my grandmother.

The moment of Gram's death is so permanently engraved in my mind's eye. Her eldest daughter's hands alit on her stoic and beautiful face, and her first born great-granddaughter bowed at her feet, in service, in awe. And as my beloved grandmother passed from this world into the presence of God, she was encircled in love and guided by our collective heavenly prayer.

As gut wrenching as it was, it was to date the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my entire life. I don't think it was at that exact moment, or even in the days afterward, or maybe it was always there and I didn't think much about it until later, but that journey, that process, kindled something in me that I still can't fully explain, but I feel called to help hold space for people and pets who are facing that same journey into whatever they believe is next. Maybe one day I'll be able to put that calling to paper a little more succinctly. But for now, I'm just here.

Death is a mystery.