Our world today is heavy with unprocessed grief: personal grief that the pace of life in a capitalist system doesn’t have time for, collective grief over global atrocities, loss of safety, roots, home, identity, and everything in-between.

Deathwork is the large umbrella that holds the spectrum of systems and people working in literal death spaces and metaphorical death spaces. This includes and is not limited to healthcare workers in hospice, palliative care, and oncology; death doulas, funeral directors, counselors, grief workers, artists. Additionally, deathwork is bigger than an individual role or title. Deathwork is culture midwifery. It helps crumbling systems die and makes room for new paradigms.

As a former oncology and hospice nurse, I’ve experienced death care in American culture through the lens of upholding the medical system. I know what it’s like to do your best and give everything you have to ease suffering for your patients and their loved ones. Healthcare workers who find themselves in end of life specialities typically are overflowing with compassion, and it’s a beautiful thing. I know these people personally, and admire them for this quality.

I also know the toll that it takes on these people to serve the sick and dying in a system that depends on the machination of the human form to uphold capitalistic and patriarchal systems. It’s not a sustainable system. It’s exploitative of both the sick and dying and the people who show up day in and day out to care for them. Deathwork acknowledges the vicarious trauma and disenfranchised grief experienced by healthcare workers, and acknowledges the need to create new sustainable paradigms.