Nurture yourself like you would anybody else going through something this hard.
– Melvina Young
A death doula reflects on the many ways people process loss — even when tears don’t come.
Marcus sat down beside me at a hookah lounge in Los Angeles and asked something to the effect of: “Ain’t you that guy that helps people die?”
I’m a death doula. I support people throughout the dying process, so I said what I always say when I get this question: “Yeah, but not in the sense of killing them.”
Marcus chuckled, introduced himself, then said, “I know, but do you also help the family after the person died?”
This was the kind of place where friendly approaches happen easily, but Marcus later confessed he knew who I was because I had once helped the mother of someone he knew transition, and that man had taken to calling me the “messenger of death.”
I could tell Marcus needed to talk, and I figured we’d need to take up space at the booth he was sitting in with his girlfriend, instead of the noisy one with friends who’d dragged me out that night. So Marcus and I headed over, and I told him that I do help the families after the death, if they want my help.
He began telling me about the giant who was his father. Keith was a Southern Black man raised on old-school principles, meaning he not only knew everyone in the vicinity by name, but he also asked how their parents were doing when he stopped them to talk.
Keith understood the importance of cooking too much food for dinner. No one went hungry in the sticks of South Carolina where he was from, as long as they knew where he lived and how to get there.
He sat on the porch and yelled to the neighbors, letting them know how nice the tomatoes they were growing looked, and he stood up at every family reunion to let people know his world-class fried whiting was ready to eat and to thank everyone for coming.
Marcus’s account of Keith was filled with stories of endless patience, sage advice, love expressed through food and kisses on the top of their heads no matter how old his children got.
Keith was a pillar, and having experienced him as a father and later in life as a friend, Marcus wanted to know why he hadn’t yet grieved.
As a death doula, I hear this question often. It’s one of the most common concerns people have when they don’t sob or feel like they’re being crushed in a stampede of sadness.
But grief doesn’t follow a set script, and just because someone’s not openly mourning doesn’t mean they aren’t feeling the weight of loss. We often have ideas about how it’s supposed to look because of how we’ve seen others experience it. But, trust me, grief is there — it just shows up in ways we don’t always recognize right away.
And in a quiet corner of this lounge, I asked Marcus something we don’t ask enough: “What does grieving look like?”
Marcus told me he expected the same sadness and anger he felt when, at 12, his best friend died. He wondered what happened to the tears he thought would come at Keith’s funeral and then again randomly while showering. He didn’t get anxious, lose sleep or build a moat around himself — all things he’d done when losing someone he loved deeply.
He felt guilt, but not the kind that normally comes with grief — about things left unsaid and undone. Marcus’s guilt was about its absence. It couldn’t possibly be that everything he wanted to say to his father had been said. To him, that’d never been done in the history of fathers and sons.
Marcus stopped talking and looked down at the hand he’d placed in his girlfriend’s. Then he looked over at me with his eyebrows raised, as if to say, “Know what I mean?”
I knew exactly what he meant. So I shared what I’d learned about grief from other grievers who had asked me to sit with them.
I told him about Alisha — who still hasn’t cried about the death of her favorite aunt (at least since the time I last spoke with her). From her, I learned that grief sometimes looks like gardening. Some mornings, before getting ready for work, Alisha gets her hands dirty in soil, planting new flowers, pulling weeds, and tending to her thyme, cucumbers, collards and strawberries.
Before she died, her aunt called her every morning to pray for her; to make sure she was having breakfast; and to talk about the plants and flowers hanging around her house — the ones she was struggling to keep alive, the ones she named after her favorite TV characters, and the ones that secretly gossiped about the others.
When Alisha got the news of her aunt’s sudden passing, her first thought was “What’s going to happen to Virgil Tibbs, the succulent?” She started a garden the next day, knowing nothing at all about gardening, and she said each new addition was a conversation with the woman who taught her to love the earth.
When Carlton got the call that his best friend died in a motorcycle accident, he did something he’d never done: He went running. He was in dress shoes, having just left work, but it was only a run around the block.
When he walked back in the house, winded and with sharp pains in his calves and ankles, he searched marathons online instead of focusing on with the tragedy, knowing there’d be plenty of time to deal with that later.
After seeing the total distance of a marathon, Carlton looked up local 5Ks and left the house, left his phone on the counter, and bought a pair of running shoes.
Every mile he covered was a mile closer to grappling with the pain he thought he was putting off. He told me he’d get a text about funeral plans or see a “Sorry for your loss” message on social media, and he’d lace up his shoes and run. Each step, he said, brought memories.
After the wake, Carlton ran. After the funeral, Carlton ran farther. And on the day of his first 5K, he crossed the finish line, exhausted, overwhelmed and completely in tears, laughing at how stupid his best friend would say he looked at that moment.
From Carlton I learned that grief also looks like running; it looks like sweating and laughing simultaneously.
Marcus sat there, listening and nodding as he stroked his beard.
“Grieving is more than one thing,” I told him. It’s the sadness, the anger, the tears, the guilt, the anxiety, the complete numbness. But it’s also laughter and singing and buying annuals to plant in your yard, thinking “annuals” means they’ll grow back next spring, too.
And there, in that booth with too many hookah burn marks, Marcus realized the neighborhood potluck he puts together when he goes back to his hometown, the smiling at old-timers while driving through the neighborhood and his efforts to keep things as his father left them — that was grieving, too.
It’s often painted in heavy, dark strokes, but it doesn’t have to be. It is more than just sadness; it’s the way we continue to live, laugh and remember. It’s in the quiet moments when you make your grandmother’s famous pie recipe, even if it’s just for yourself. It’s in the way you play the song that reminds you of your best friend, singing out loud in the car.
Grief is a part of love, and love isn’t just sadness — grief can be full of life.
Excerpted from “Never Can Say Goodbye” by Darnell Lamont Walker and reprinted with permission from HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2026.
Coping With Grief and Loss
Living through the loss of a loved one is a universal experience. But the ways in which we experience and deal with the pain can largely differ.
Grief Attacks: Sudden surges of anguish can accompany intense mourning. That’s not unusual, experts say, and they can even be helpful.
What Is Anticipatory Grief?: While immersing yourself in it doesn’t mean that a loss will be less painful, experts say it can help you prepare. Here’s how to navigate these feelings.
What Experts Say: Psychotherapists say that grief is not a problem to be solved, but a process to be lived through, in whatever form it may take.
How to Help: Experiencing a sudden loss can be particularly traumatic. Here are some ways to offer your support to someone grieving.
Let’s Talk About Death: From end-of-life care to burials and beyond, we answer your questions on mortality.
How Do You Grieve?: We asked readers for the unconventional ways they remember those they’ve lost. Over 800 replied.
