COVID highlights importance of death conversations

Thoughtful Transitions help families navigate through losses

The Rev. Dr. Jamie Eaddy-Chism is the first to admit that death, dying, grief and mourning have been taboo subjects but now insists that the COVID-19 pandemic has not only forced families to talk about the uncomfortable subjects but coerced them to focus on quality of life and dignity in death.

“No one likes to talk about death and dying, right? I love to,” Chism says from her home in Philadelphia in a Zoom interview with WOW. “I absolutely love to talk about death and dying. And in general, it is not a subject that most of the world wants to talk about, especially Black and Brown communities, to be quite honest.”

Chism, affectionately known as Dr. J, is the founder and CEO of Thoughtful Transitions, which she describes as an organization or business that “helps people through the dying process,” whether it is the patient, family, or friends. Transitions.org, her website, stresses “we believe that no one should have to grieve or die alone, nor should anyone die without adequate care and compassion. We also recognize that there are cultural, ethnic, and social influences that impact how grief, loss, death, and dying are experienced from person to person.”

The word “transitions” is used because Chism says that besides the actual physical death of people, we often experience “little deaths” in relationships, job terminations, evictions, relocations, divorce, dreams and even peace and normalcy.

“Lately COVID [-19] has presented us with an opportunity, I think, to engage in more conversation,” Chism says. “It’s still not enough for me.”

The Coronavirus pandemic that began in 2019 has claimed more than 6.2 million lives worldwide. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said nearly 1 million people have died from the viruses that cause respiratory, gastrointestinal, and neurological diseases within its victims. Recent data from Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering showed 510 deaths as the seven-day average for April 21.

Other types of deaths have increased too. Street violence is escalating and has claimed thousands of lives across the U.S. with Memphis, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Milwaukee having the largest number of violent crimes per 100,000 residents. And hundreds have been killed in such unexpected natural disasters as hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, floods, droughts, cyclones, and tsunamis.

Thoughtful Transitions help families, friends, and others “explore meaning,” Chism says.

“‘I was here but did I do anything?’ ‘What value did I add?’” she notes as examples. “We help you think about the rituals that might be meaningful to you or your loved ones. Those rituals don’t have to be within a certain theology.”

Families also are helped to explore options.

“Helping you think about how you want to spend your last days if you are at that stage,” she says. “Who do you want to represent you? Do you want your children to be able to see you? What do you want us to do at your bedside? We work through things like that.”

Some friends and families want to understand the death process.

“We help families understand what is happening in the dying process,” says Chism explaining that some people begin to change colors or skin textures. “We walk you through what dying looks like, how dying feels to the body, the smells that might be present. We help the dying persons, and their families explore those things.”

Chism adds that some cultures like to leave something behind for their families to have as a keepsake. Her team works with the dying person or family to explore those options as well. For example, before Chism started her work she helped her own family realize that her grandmother was an amazing cook, and that the family could enjoy her recipes as a lasting memory. Chism created a cookbook.

“Thirty years from now will someone be able to make that sweet potato pie for the cookout or the dinner?” she says, noting that her group gets families to think about “How do we capture who the person was, what they brought into this space for years to come.”

And the unpleasant subject of finances also is discussed with families.

“Can you spend $1 a day on a policy so your family won’t have to do a ‘go-fund me’ to bury you?” she asks rhetorically. “I know we all are at different levels financially. I get that. But we also don’t prepare. You shouldn’t have to go broke because you die. Your family shouldn’t have to go broke because you die.”

Chism embraces several roles, including healer, theologian, thanatologist, poet, death doula, and loss navigation specialist.

“I think healer is the ultimate title that I was gifted with,” she explains. “Thanatology is the exploration of death, dying practices, and grief. I do that from a healing perspective. I think every space that I sit in I sit in from the position of healer. I probably should say I’m a healer who works through the different roles.”

A doula assists individuals and families in the dying process, “helping to explore options like ‘what kind of funeral do I want to have’? ‘Do I want to have a funeral?’ ‘Do I want to have a green burial?’ ‘Do I want to be cremated?’” she says.

“I work with anyone because everybody is dying at some point,” she says. “As a doula, I am not here to convert anyone from a faith perspective. I am only here to be with you through your dying process.”

Chism is the director of program development for The International End of Life Doula Association (INELDA). She is a 2015 Princeton University Black Theology and Leadership Institute Fellow and earned a Master of Divinity from The Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia University in Richmond. She earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, N.Y., and is a certified trauma professional (CTP).

In addition, she has certification in death, dying and bereavement from the Association for Death Education and Counseling. And, she has training in Clinical Pastoral Education.

Fees are charged for Thoughtful Transitions services, although Chism says that about 30% of her work is pro bono. She provides one-on-one coaching, grief coaching and processing, presentations, workshops, and seminars.

Chism’s work includes death care and death positivity. She explains that death care is “anything that happens for, to or around a person as he or she nears the last breath.” If needed, the transition team deals with hospice care, medication, and all other health care needs attached to dying.

Death positivity is a movement that seeks to change “the way we approach, think about, talk about death,” Chism says, explaining it’s “taking the sting out of death.”

“Making death, instead of a taboo topic, something that we should actually talk about, drawing attention to end-of-life care,” she adds.

Death positivity also focuses on the injustices of death. For example, Chism asks why does “it costs a lot of money to die?” She says that one answer is that funeral homes often bundle unnecessary services in the package prices they offer to families.

Doing the work of Thoughtful Transitions often forces Chism and her team to challenge societal norms, such as how Black families vs. white families are treated and allowed to express their grief in hospital and hospice settings.

There are positive and negative ways to navigate death, Chism reasons. Ignoring the loss altogether, refusing to allow yourself to feel what you feel and not identifying exactly what is lost are negative ways to navigate loss. Positive ways include naming “the loss” and taking time to process it.

“We accept certain emotions, and we tell people those other emotions are not Godly or have no place with you,” Chism explains. “We sometimes don’t want people to tap into their own emotions where God has created us with emotions.”

Chism adds, “In faith communities, one of the bad ways we navigate loss is by shaming people for not moving through loss as quickly as [we] want them to. We want people to be sad on Monday and then on Friday say, ‘I have victory in Christ’ and that’s it. Well yeah, you got victory and you’re still sad.”

Another key aspect of loss, Chism says, is that often people are not allowed to verbalize those losses that society and local communities refuse to accept, such as extramarital or homosexual affairs, drug addictions and incarcerations.

Thoughtful Transitions work to create “sacred spaces” – environments or atmospheres – where people can receive empathy without guilt when they “name their loss,” she says.

“We recognize the presence of God even if our language is different,” Chism says, “where you can come as your whole self, knowing you are God’s creation, where you are not shamed for being who you are in expressing your loss in a way that feels natural to you and where people will sit with you in the dirt and the mess and whatever comes with the way you are feeling in those moments.”

She adds, “I think we are able to do that for people, in some way, speak and inspire hope. That is what we attempt to create for every person we are walking alongside of.”

Rev. Sylveta Brown, an educator in Silver Spring, Maryland, facilitates webinars with Thoughtful Transitions that Chism says “helps create environments where people can process grief.”

“Rev. Dr. Jamie Eaddy-Chism is providing life-enhancing work and support necessary for all of us,” Brown says. “Her expertise and insight provide a framework that empowers individuals and organizations to create narratives and plans for end-of-life planning, grief, and grief support.”

Kris Kington-Barker, director of Special Programs and a board member of INELDA, offers a different perspective on the necessity of death talks today. She explains that in the past, many generations of families often lived under one roof where young, middle-aged, aging, frail or dying family members co-existed. Death was accepted as a part of life.

“Death was in our houses, rather than hospitals and institutions, where we didn’t have to look at it,” says Kington-Barker, a resident of San Luis Obispo, California, noting that in the past, family viewings of loved ones’ bodies were in the home not at funeral homes.

“If you look at how COVID has happened for people, we’ve kept people away from seeing it,” she adds. “We have isolated people by not letting them into the hospitals. We have isolated people from not allowing them to be with their person. We have also isolated them in that, by not allowing them to see death and dying, it makes it not real.”

“We isolate ourselves away from the very natural thing that is – dying and death – that is part of our life cycle. And it didn’t use to be that way,” she concludes.

Chism, who was born and raised in Philadelphia but lived her early adulthood in Washington, D.C., admits she never tires of these topics that are often labeled gruesome. As a 13-year-old when she faced the death of a favorite cousin and at 19 when her grandmother died, Chism realized she has an innate talent to comfort and inspire grieving people.

Her foray into the ministry began in Philadelphia in 1997, when she was commissioned as an evangelist. Seven years later, in 2004, she was licensed to preach by leaders at Metropolitan Baptist Church in the District of Columbia.

Before receiving her preaching license at Metropolitan, Chism says she and 40 others were assigned to pastoral care that included making regular hospital visits. Also, she and 12 others worked in death and bereavement care at the church. Soon, the 12 dropped to only Chism and three others who worked with families dealing with death. She admits to complaining about “death” work.

“The truth is I don’t know that I didn’t want to do the work as much as NOBODY wanted to do THAT work,” she explains. “It wasn’t the glitzy thing. It wasn’t preaching.”

Chism told herself, “‘All you do is death.’ But I realized that I had a way of being with family that my colleagues did not. So, I sat in it a little bit more and realized that this is where God had me and then I did it for years.”

In addition to all the church work, Chism was building a career as a Verizon executive. She says God spoke to her in April 2015, telling her to leave her job and everything would be revealed in 2020. She launched Thoughtful Transitions in August 2019, shortly before COVID-19 began its slow, deadly roll across the world.

“In 2020, the pandemic hit, and it became very clear,” she says. “The Holy Spirit said, ‘this is why.’”

While death and dying are difficult topics for most people, Chism says, “the beauty of it is I’m not expecting people to walk away believing what I believe about death either. I want them to explore for themselves their own mortality, the fact that they will not always be here. There is plenty that we can do to help [people] process that. To help families process that, to help [people] prepare for that day and to help families prepare in ways that allow them to grieve.”

written by TMCH