Skylark End of Life Doula Cornwall

13/11/2025

Have you ever been walking on the coast path or in the countryside and followed a sign then found you're lost because the path is vague and there no more signs but plenty of forks in the path? Often in illness we get signposted to things intended to help us. But like the signs on our walks they can be vague, leading us not always where we want to be and sometimes throwing us off the right path entirely. Lots of time, research and money goes into signposting yet services often get missed, the right services not linking with the people that need them most. Often there's a myriad of information both locally and nationally but it can be hard to navigate especially when under pressure as a carer or the person suffering a life threatening illness. A doula can help you find what you need locally by understanding you as a person. Part of our training is researching local resources from both the voluntary sector and within local governance. We look into all types of ways you can be supported from a multitude of holistic therapies to help with hospital transport, energy costs, local cleaning services and everything else in-between. We bring together person centred signposting that supports you as the individual you are. Because life is too short to be going round in circles, getting lost and going in the wrong direction. Let us make life easier by signposting you to the right support at the right time.
PM for details.

12/11/2025

When I did my recent survey a friend told me personally that they were prepared with their advance planning having do r their LPAs and wills. They assumed they, like their parents, will die either at home or in a care home with their partner there and their adult child (who lives far away with a family of their own) to enable them to die as they wish. However they hadn't put anything in writing as to specifics. They hadn't considered their dying might not be the same as their parents and that anything could happen. Let's have the conversations. Let's normalise empowering ourselves to say what we want and what we don't want. Let's make sure, as best we can, that we die as we live, with agency, with dignity and with the knowledge that those around us I know exactly what we want.
If anyone turns the TV on for background noise in my dying room I swear I shall come back to haunt them! 😉

When I am dying, I don’t want the last sounds I hear to be machines beeping and alarms going off telling me what I already know, which is that my body is shutting down and I am dying.

I don’t want machines keeping me alive.
I don’t want machines feeding me.
I don’t want to feel the suffocation of the blood pressure cuff as it squeezes my arm every hour on the hour.
I don’t want IV’s stuck in my arms, or tubes down my throat.
I don’t want other people making decisions for me.

I don’t want to be in a room that isn’t mine, with a view of medical charts and notes stating when I had my last bowel movement, when my medications are due, or how many times I have been turned and repositioned, which by the way is obnoxious when you are dying and I definitely do not want that.

I don’t want fluorescent lights on above my head, forcing me to keep my eyes closed so they don’t burn from the glare.

I don’t want people walking into my room as though it is theirs and not mine.

I don’t want strangers telling me what to do or how to feel or treating me like I don’t have feelings.

I don't want people to talk over or about me as if I can't hear. I can hear and I will hear you!

I don’t want my family to wait day after day in a stark hospital room knowing there is nothing else anyone can do but wait.
This is not how I want to die.
This is not how I want the people who love me to see me die.

I have written down everything that is important to me so that none of the above ever occurs.
I have listed where I want to be, who I want there, what music I want to hear, how I want to be cared for, what I want to wear, how I want my symptoms managed, and to what extent I want people to go to keep me alive.

When I am dying, I want my wishes honored, my voice heard, and my death peaceful.
I want this for you too!

Please write down your wishes and share them with the people you love.
Have the conversation.
Talk to your family and friends.
I promise you… it won’t happen sooner because you talked about it.

xo
Gabby

My book “The Conversation” is a great way to get the conversation started.
https://a.co/d/5kDTiSn

My class “Your End-of-Life Wishes”
can be found here:
https://www.thehospiceheart.net/your-end-of-life-wishes

You can find this blog here:
https://www.thehospiceheart.net/post/when-i-am-dying

02/11/2025

This evening I took this photo close to an ancient burial mound.
It doesn't matter whether these orbs are specks of dust or light trickery on my camera lens, faerie , piskies, spirits or angels. What matters is they danced before my eyes as I took the picture and I was reminded that there's more to heaven and earth than we will ever know...
As our days shorten in the coming weeks before midwinter and the western world urges us to prepare for Christmas, I feel this is a time to prepare for our own wintering..I use November to prepare for my own end of life by updating my plans, & making legacy gifts that I can give at Christmas but that my loved ones will cherish forever. Because we never know when death may take us so making life count whilst we have it is just common sense.
If you feel the need to prepare for your own wintering and dont know where to start, drop me a message.
"Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time." — Seneca

30/10/2025

The rivers of our lives ceaselessly flow towards the sea of eternity.
This space where tide and time meet, where our river becomes estuary and the ebb and flow of something greater meets us and pulls us out of ourselves returning us to the one.
Sunrise skies lit up the river like a fiery dragon weaving its way across the sands this morning & I felt that deep sense of passing fury and injustice for those whose lives seem to be taken far too soon. And I wept.
Then I turned to see a rainbow over the sea.
A reminder that life and death comes to us all and a nudge to remember "You can't add days to your life, but you can add life to your days"

17/10/2025

If you're down Penzance way this looks to be a wonderful offering.

The Little Festival on a Big Topic.
Death & dying explored through creativity, contemplation and compassion.

16/10/2025

This made me well up. What a lovely response from a stranger.
Its nearly 3 years since we lost our stepdad and I still go to text him asking his advice on the car or some DIY problem before realising he would never get that text. Or going to send him a joke or funny meme because he would be the only person to appreciate it.
We all probably do it. Reaching out to those we love like they are still here. And maybe somewhere, somehow they hear or see those messages through the ether. We will never know. But the fact is our bonds don't break because our loved ones die.

This really touched me. 💜💜💜💜💜🪽🪽🪽

14/10/2025

This is beautiful

Carrying Our Loved Ones Within

We carry our loved ones
in the quiet corners of our days,
in the echo of a laugh,
the warmth of a touch,
the gentle guidance they once offered.

We honor them in the life we live,
in acts of kindness,
in passions pursued,
in values held close.

Grief and love intertwine,
and in that weaving,
their spirit becomes part of us,
a steady light,
a quiet, steadfast strength.

Even in our choices,
their wisdom guides us,
a subtle compass pointing the way.

To carry our loved ones within is to honor them,
to let their essence move through us,
shaping the rhythm of our days,
reminding us that love endures,
even beyond presence.

~ 'Carrying Our Loved Ones Within' by Spirit of a Hippie

✍️ Mary Anne Byrne

~ Art by Serin Alar Serin Alar

12/10/2025

Since being a child I have referred to our last month's/years as the autumn of our lives. I think I was 7 when I decided I wanted Forever Autumn by Justin Hayward (War of the Worlds album) as my funeral song. (Such a happy child lol) But I am a firm believer in Autumn being a teacher in life cycles. As I played with Autumnal offerings yesterday I was reminded of the work of two great teachers. Frank Ostaseski, founder of the Zen hospice project says in his book The Five Invitations, that a little girl once said to him she likes trees because their leaves fall to make way for new ones to grow. ❤️🍂
I feel we can use nature's lessons to come to terms with our own mortality. For death, as heartbreaking as it is, is a vital part of living.
'Dying is to death as being born is to life. Each is preceded by what seemed to be the only possible reality and each succeeded by the next remarkable scenario.'
*Stephen Levine Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying 1982

09/10/2025

Please take a minute to fill out my form. Trying to understand how I can help people and what resources are needed locally

09/10/2025

Why is death, even one you know is coming still a shock?
Yesterday I found out a beautiful soul I knew had died on Tuesday evening, the same evening I took these photos. Whenever we talked I was always in this place and her love of nature & mushrooms meant that when I photographed one I sent her it, especially as she grew more ill. But I didn't on Tuesday despite her being in my thoughts.
The mackerel sky and the sundog made me look to the heavens and the crow, that messenger between life and death seemed like it was walking into the sunset as a lone figure followed after. I didn't know then she had died.
And yesterday, after I found out I tried to get on with my day but I kept just breaking down. I don't think any of us ever really come to terms with dying. It's always a shock. It affects every fibre of your being and it's not something to process. Like a storm surge in the sea it washes over us unexpectedly, and every atom that makes us human gets moved in it's wake.
Fly high Sarah. Your smile lit up a room and your soul lit up the world. You will live on in hearts and minds because your nature is in every Earthly thing your body left behind. You are the whisper on the wind & glistening dewdrops on the grass.
You are the falling autumn leaves, In all their colour and glory of a life well lived. You are the warmth in the sunshine and the joy of morning birdsong, the magic of mycelium and wonder at budding flowers. Your joy breathed life into this human existence & you gifted all who knew you the essence of the divine.
Fly high. 🍄🍂✨

03/10/2025

I often turn to nature to draw parallels with our human experience of life and death and sometimes think this may seem a romantic view & not really address the nitty gritty of the work, the pain and the overwhelm that dying often brings. But as I cleaned out my allotment shed the other day I realised that once again I was drawing on this to offer me insight into our dying process. The dessliccated remains of rats and big spiders reminded me that life is often messy and yucky and unpalatable but it still needs seeing to.
Often we will get told to 'get your affairs in order' and this generally means sorting out our will, insurance, maybe funeral plan etc. What they don't say is how overwhelming this can be. I clean out my shed twice a year. It's always a mammoth job. I still accumulate stuff and things get muddled & mislaid and like our 'affairs' we need to be up to date and on top of our game
If you're like me and have your dying plans organised you still need to update them regularly.
Too often this all seems overwhelming....even when we are well. But would you wait till you're terminally ill to do the work of cleaning out your shed or putting your life in order? By doing some of the work while you are well you lift the burden from your future self and make life easier in the long run.
An End of life Doula can help you get your house in order so it never becomes too big of a job when you are not feeling well and as a cleaner I can help physically with the art of Swedish death cleaning which means to get your actual house in order so your loved ones don't have to use their grieving time to sort out mundanities..
Free half hour consultations available. DM me.
(The doll in the picture might look terrifying but has come down through generations of my family and is actually a good reminder that we all hold onto stuff whether seen or unseen that one day someone else will have to take care of)