BEING THERE

On a cold October morning in Lander, Wyo., Liz Lightner makes a few mental notes as she sits by a stranger’s bedside.

The man is 79, has lung cancer, and is in a deep-sleep coma. He’s wearing a blue scuba-diving shirt that’s worn out and looks as though it’s been loved, washed, and rewashed for many years. Besides the company of Lightner and his cat, the man is alone and moments from dying.

Using only words, Lightner, 49, carries him away from a home he can’t physically leave anymore and guides him under the sea, where she knows he used to be happy. She leans her head against his chest and tells him they’re now swimming together in the tropical ocean, where so many vibrant schools of fish surround them. She describes for him the striking blues and oranges of their fins, how the sun pierces the still water and lights up the coral beneath them. She tells him he’s warm, weightless, and floating.

Lightner sits beside the man for nearly seven hours. Before she leaves, she gently places his frail hand on his sleeping cat and reassures him that his beloved pet will be fine when he’s gone. Then she opens a window—a symbolic and spiritual gesture of passage to whatever comes next.

The man died the next day, which is expected in Lightner’s new line of work. She’s a death doula, a coach who helps the terminally ill be at peace with dying—and she’s among hundreds of Americans who’ve embraced the rising occupation during the pandemic. Whereas birth or labor doulas provide support and coaching at the start of life, death doulas