Carey M. Palmquist -MSM, EOLD
Life and Death Doula, Mentor, Speaker, Educator, Grief Coach, Officiant (she/her/hers)
I am a life and death doula who believes that honest, timely conversations about death—held with intimacy and vulnerability—can open a sacred space where death is understood not as an ending, but as a natural phase of our magnificent humanity.
I walk alongside individuals and their loved ones to nurture this space with compassion, clarity, and deep respect, offering support that honors both life and loss. Together, we move toward acceptance and understanding, creating a steady foundation that can gently carry all who are touched through the inevitable grief that accompanies profound change.
My Story (Because everyone has one to tell)
As a young girl, death felt mysterious and faintly macabre. The dying were placed over there—in a separate, quiet room with the lights dimmed, as though darkness itself were contagious. When we entered, we whispered. We spoke over the dying, around them, about them.
Never to them.
Never.
How devastatingly lonely that must have been—for them, and for us.
Over time, through my own encounters with life and death, that early understanding unraveled. I came to see dying not as a moment for retreat or avoidance, but as a deeply human passage—one that calls for presence, tenderness, and courage. Even as our beloveds transition, they deserve to be honored, respected, and heard. Death is not an ending that separates us; it is an invitation into connection at its most honest.
I became an end-of-life doula after experiencing several profound losses. The first was my closest friend, who died in her early forties from an aggressively cruel cancer. She left behind a husband and two young children. As her death approached, she withdrew from everyone who loved her and ultimately died alone, behind a locked door. I often wonder how different that journey might have been—if someone had been there to hold space for her fear, her love, her voice… and for the children who were left to make sense of her absence.
I have also witnessed another way of dying. I have stood alongside friends and family whose final days were held within a circle of care—where the person who was dying remained at the center, their autonomy honored, their wishes spoken aloud. The grief was still immense; there is no softening that truth. And yet, within that grief, I saw peace. Acceptance. Even moments of unexpected beauty.
Being present at death awakened in me a deep desire to support those navigating end-of-life choices, planning, and emotional care—both for the dying and for the people who love them.
In my own grief, shaped by a lifelong tendency to overthink, I found unexpected grounding in the writings and teachings of Ram Dass. Encountering his invitation to “be here now”—right in the midst of loss—shifted something essential in me. It reminded me that presence itself can be a form of love.
And that is why I am here.
To sit with you.
To listen.
To help create a space where nothing needs to be hidden, rushed, or whispered.
