Bryn Schraven is no stranger to death. When Schraven was 19 years old, their dad died in a car accident in the middle of their small Wisconsin town. A mountain of paperwork soon piled up, and so did the comments from well-meaning community members.
“It was very tragic and very sudden … I had some issues feeling unheard by the funeral director and funeral company I went with,” Schraven said, “and I felt a little hurt by some of the things that people said to me at that time because people don’t know how to talk about death and dying.”
Neighbors said things like, “At least he’s in a better place,” or asked if Schraven was wondering if he was in heaven. As Schraven sat down for breakfast on the morning before the funeral, a waitress shared her experience of seeing the accident happen in uncomfortable detail.
“I decided at that time that I wanted to be part of the change … I have to be able to help somehow and turn this negative experience into something more positive for other people,” they said.
Schraven started reading books about grief and death, researching what other options were out there. They discovered the term “death doula” – a trained companion who helps people through the processes of death, dying and grief.
How it works
After spending years training with various death doulas, Schraven started a business this year called Silver Glass Deathcare to help others through the experience of loss and to change the conversation around death. They provide support in the form of death education, planning end-of-life rituals for people and their pets, and being with individuals in their final hours.
“A lot of people seem to have this idea that talking about death is going to bring it on faster,” Schraven said. “That’s a big misconception that I see a lot, is that I’m morbid for wanting to talk about death and dying and grief, and it’s simply not true.”
Similar to how a birth doula helps clients make a birth plan, Schraven and other death doulas will create a custom death plan for each person, allowing people to express their wants and needs for their last few hours. This could include dimming the lights, choosing what music to play and deciding who they want to take shifts at their bedside.
Schraven, who is nonbinary, usually opts for a more gender-neutral term instead of doula: death companion or deathwalker. They created Silver Glass Deathcare with the goal of reaching out to members of the LGBTQ+ community, who can have a unique relationship to grief and death. For example, some might want a nonreligious approach to funerals or a bedside vigil that doesn’t involve a church.
Others might not be married to their significant other, which means that legally, their family would decide what to do with their body, Schraven said. Filling out an Authorization for Final Disposition form allows people to designate someone to carry out their final wishes.
“After you pass away, there’s a chain of custody that determines who is in charge of what happens to your body,” Schraven said. “Your spouse comes first, and if you’re not married, then it’s your family – your parents, your next of kin – and not everybody in the queer community has a great relationship with their next of kin.”
‘It happens to all of us’
Schraven trained extensively by taking classes with death doulas across the country, including Erin Merelli’s Deathschool Evolved and La Mort’s School of Sacred Death. Merelli said Schraven stood out for their dedication to the queer community.
“There’s always one or two students in each of the sessions that really stand out for their passion in this space, for the experience that they’ve already had in it and for the vision they have of where they want to take it and how they want to serve,” Merelli said. “And Bryn definitely showed up as that person.”
Merelli trains hundreds of death doulas throughout the country and said businesses like Silver Glass Deathcare are important to spread this type of work to different communities and regions.
“For any movement, for any type of culture shift we’re hoping to make, we need a broad range of diverse and dynamic voices,” she said. “It’s not my voice alone, and these ideas are not my ideas alone.”
In Merelli’s classes, Schraven learned that death isn’t always a taboo subject. In some Muslim or Hindu traditions, for example, it’s common for the deceased’s family to wash and prepare the body to be buried or cremated.
“There are a lot of cultures out there that are less shy about death than we are, and they hide it less,” Schraven said. “I think that that’s really important in as far as spending time with the person that you’ve lost after they’re gone.”
Schraven wants to let families know that this is an option and suggests a ritual that acknowledges each part of their loved one’s body, one at a time — their head, eyes, ears, hands and heart.
“It’s just a really beautiful way to say, ‘We honor your body and what you did for us while you were here, and we are giving you the opportunity to go and be at peace,’” Schraven said.
Schraven is also starting a death and grief book club at Author Apothecary & Bookstore in Oshkosh, which will meet the last Thursday of the month starting Sept. 24. The goal is to normalize the conversation around death and dying through discussing books like “Lost Souls Meet Under A Full Moon” by Mizuki Tsujimura.
“I don’t advocate for censoring death,” Schraven said. “It happens to all of us, and the more openly and freely we can talk about it, the better prepared we are for when that eventuality happens.”
This story is part of Meet a Neighbor, an ongoing feature series focused on the people who make a difference in northeastern Wisconsin. Know someone we should spotlight? Nominate them here.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
