When Linda Gould’s father was dying just before the pandemic, she and her family felt unprepared. Living abroad at the time, Gould flew back and forth to Delaware as his health declined. Each visit, she saw him farther along in the process, but the family had little understanding of what to expect.

“We were in denial,” she recalled. “He was in denial, and we just were unprepared for what we encountered at the end of his life.”

That experience, combined with supporting a close friend with pancreatic cancer while living in Japan, led Gould to discover a role that many families don’t realize exists: the death doula.

Finding her calling

The loss of her father and friend set Gould, a yoga instructor, on a path she hadn’t expected. While supporting her friend in Japan, Gould drew on her yoga

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