When I’m called to a bedside, my clients and their families often believe that I know every single thing there is to know about death and dying. But despite the countless hours I have spent with people as they prepare for death, there are many things I will never understand. Who could? Certainly not the scientists, philosophers, or sidewalk preachers among us. They are all still alive. The near-death-experience people? They got to the lobby of death and turned right back around. Death doulas like me? We’re still alive too. I can read all the books and get close to death a thousand times over, but without experiencing it firsthand, I’m just as curious and clueless as the next living person. What I have observed from the deathbeds of others is that dying is a process of transformation of the body and death marks the end of that transformation. When our time on earth is up, our bodies turn from vibrant, connected vessels animated by something unknown into lifeless, empty matter in the space of a single breath.
Bodies tell our story. At the end of our lives, they give away clues about the type of life we lived. My clients’ faces often reveal how they moved through the world. For example, Jonathan’s deep furrows in the middle of his brow suggested skepticism and inquisitiveness. He had been an astronomer, and the only bit of flooring visible in his home was the path from his living room to his bedroom. The rest was covered in stacks of glossy science magazines. He stubbornly refused his reading glasses to read them. His constant squinting was visible in his face, even when it was at rest.
A former dancer named Elizabeth, bedbound for three years after multiple knee and hip replacements, had deep smile lines around her mouth with a matching pair around her eyes, stretching upward into her temples and toward the sun. They told of exuberant joy in her life. Even in her final weeks alive, she giggled like she was falling in love.
Frowns, disapproval, and sadness sat in Ernst’s jowls. At a diminutive four feet eight inches in height, he was as crotchety as old men come, only allowing me to visit because his daughters insisted. He seemed to delight exclusively in his grandson’s obsession with trains, which he also shared. Ernst constantly looked like there was rotting fish in the room unless his grandson was around.
Edward’s upper arms, torso, and thighs were covered in tattoos. He was a big-time corporate lawyer who headed up a motorcycle club in the suburbs where he lived. He left his calves and forearms un-inked because of golf vacations with the associates at his firm.
And then there’s my body. I hope that when I die, my body says that I danced, enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face, and loved both squats and french fries.
On May 29, 1978, weighing in at a hefty ten pounds, my body arrived on Earth to play. God bless my mother’s body. She’d lived twenty-six years, had a short Afro and a body that had already been inhabited by my sister when I took up residence there. Since her first child was only six months old, she didn’t know she was pregnant with me. She didn’t believe women could get pregnant while breastfeeding. She was wrong. I was conceived in London but don’t want to know too much about that, other than that I traveled in utero to be born in Ghana. Been traveling ever since.
My birth was my first death—from the womb into this world. I changed form. Changed the way I breathe. Changed environments and left the only place I knew thus far—the comfort of my mother’s body—much to her delight since I was three weeks late. Or as I like to say, right on time, just not according to scientific projections. This was in Accra, Ghana’s capital city, and the only thing to do was be patient till I made my entrance. No Pitocin, no epidurals, no options except to let nature take its course and let my mom’s body do what my mom’s body would do. I arrived after a long labor on both of our parts. Hers was powered by a meal of Tuo Zaafi (a northern Ghana dish of corn dough, vegetable stew, and meat) while straddling a toilet; mine by a shimmy shake to get these wide shoulders of mine down her birth canal. I was born while the sun was in Gemini and the moon was in Pisces. Gemini was rising on the eastern horizon.
A huge and wide-eyed infant, I grew into a chubby kid. In Ghana being a heavy child is a source of family pride. We call chubby kids bofti as a term of endearment. It signifies wealth, health, and good upbringing. And a hefty appetite, which mothers seem to love.
As a child, my namesake, Aunty Alua, my dad’s favorite aunt, screams “Bofti!” gleefully whenever I approach, trying to pick me up, groaning with delight about how heavy I am. She is elated that my parents have chosen to name a child after her. Fawning all over me and pinching my round cheeks, she rushes me into her home to sneak me candies, cake, and my favorite Muscatella soda, which tastes like cream soda mixed with pineapple and ginger ale. Being in my body as a child, I felt celebrated, wanted, safe, and loved.
When we finally moved to the United States when I was eleven years old, my relationship with my body grew tense. Being chubby was looked down upon here. So was being Black. My body suddenly became reviled, an enemy, something to fear and fix rather than appreciate for the miracle it was. As a preteen, my curves attracted attention I did not want.
Now as an adult, I’ve found harmony with my body by rooting myself in the mystery of its existence and delighting in its power and grace. I’m no longer trying to rid myself of the little pooch that sits on my lower abdomen through crunches and two-minute planks. Instead, I’m savoring tortilla chips dipped in Nutella and truffle mac ’n’ cheese.
I am chubby no more, but still big. Being big is not a choice. I stand five feet ten inches tall, in a deeply melanated, female, shapely, energetic, able, and athletic body. For now. I consider every last one of these attributes to be privileges, despite what the outside world validates. My facial features are strong—razor-sharp cheekbones and unapologetic, wide-gapped front teeth. My collarbones sit prominently, deep enough to hold water. My arms have thick biceps that accompany my child-bearin’ hips and malleable hamstrings down below. My long fingers and wide palms can grip a woman’s basketball from the top with one hand, despite my delicate and ornately painted nails.
My sturdy legs are marked with scars, big and small—evidence of a lifetime of clumsiness and adventure. And I’ve got big ole feet that I trip over. All of the bones I’ve ever broken are in my feet, earning me the nickname Grace, as a joke. (The irony that this nickname is now part of the name of my death doula business, Going with Grace, is not lost on me.)
Sometimes when a stranger hears my voice over the phone, I am called “mister” or “sir,” especially in the morning when my voice is deep and husky. I speak with a lisp—putting a little twist on my s—which I can’t hear except when audio is played back, or when the kids in middle school made fun of me. It’s a tongue thrust that speech therapy didn’t get rid of. I don’t find anything wrong with it. It’s just different in America. It would work in Spain.
My hair is dreadlocked and hangs down to the middle of my back. Several of the locs are jazzed up with gold strings, charms, and cowrie shells. I decorate my body heavily, choosing brightly colored clothes, adorning my ears and nose with many piercings, and draping my fingers and wrists with what some would consider an excess of brass and copper jewelry. I scent myself with frankincense and myrrh.
People stare at me wherever I go. Significantly more in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, than in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. But no matter—I’m gonna give them something worth looking at. I’m only here for a small amount of time. So I insist on taking up space in the world, in rooms, in my life, and in my relationships. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am here. This is my body. It is the place I live and also the place where I will die.
In time, my body, like all bodies, will shrivel and deteriorate. I’m already losing collagen in my skin and pigment in my hair follicles, and I need to pee more often than I used to. My cells are having a harder time replenishing the nutrients that come via food and the environment than they did yesterday. My boobs sag and I’ve fully surrendered to cellulite, even in my arms. I only learned that was a thing after I turned forty and fat started settling in places it hadn’t before. Lines are forming around my eyes, and the one in between my eyebrows is deepening. My facial skin feels thinner while the skin around my elbows and knees is thickening. No amount of anti-aging creams or vitamins can stop this bodily process. At this very moment, I am the youngest I will ever be again, and also the oldest I’ve ever been. I’m human. I was born. I will age. Not aging means I am dead. So for now, I’d rather take glucosamine for my joints and use an eye cream to keep my skin supple.
Day in and day out, we trust our bodies to carry out billions of tasks for us, without much, if any, participation from us. Are you aware of how many breaths you’ve taken or how many heartbeats have passed while reading these paragraphs? (Around 360 heartbeats and between 60 to 100 breaths, depending on how quickly you read.) Or how much additional sensory information you are receiving at this moment to regulate your temperature? When we get a paper cut, most of us can effortlessly trust that the tiny but painful wound will heal on its own. The body sweats, alchemizes minerals, processes food, creates waste, blinks, releases oil, creates red blood cells . . . you get the point. It works without a thank-you for all the functions it carries out so we can live. We inherently trust the body.
We trust the body to turn us on when sexually aroused and turn us off to go to sleep. Millions of neurons fire when we have a fleeting thought, and we trust our thousands of taste buds to distinguish between sweet and bitter. The body alerts us to something that requires our attention through pain and sends white blood cells into our tissues looking for invasive bacteria and viruses to kill off before they kill us. Without our conscious knowledge, the body alerts us that there is danger nearby by raising hairs on the back of our necks. When there are strong emotions (or an extrasensory perception), the body will contract the muscles that are attached to each hair follicle, causing our skin to raise. We know this as goosebumps. (I call them juicebumps because something pretty juicy is normally going on when goosebumps arise.)
The body is our most trustworthy companion. We care for our bodies in many ways, often superficially. We cover our bodies in clothes, we get haircuts, drink fancy water, eat food, shower, and slather on moisturizer. (If you don’t, please start. Don’t be ashy for the blip of a moment you are alive.) And finally, we rest when we are tired. Science and medicine cannot fix everything. Until the antiagers and the cryonics folks find a work-around, the body will always win.
Ask me how I know.
For nine long weeks in my late thirties, I trained to be a competitive middle-distance runner: 800 meters, 1,500 meters, and the mile. A man I’d met at a park while I was stretching mid–recreational run complimented my physique and form. Thinking he was hitting on me but noting his use of the scientific names for my muscles, I paused. He thought I held promise as a middle-distance runner and since I liked to run anyway, I gave it a shot. He wanted to train me for free to regain some of his former running coach glory. I would be the Rocky to his Mickey. I agreed to meet him each Tuesday for ten-mile runs, Thursday for weight lifting, and Saturday for sprint practice at the track where his former running colleagues trained and where he would show me off.
During the weeks we trained, I was ravenous. I slept almost ten hours every night. My body grew sinewy and ripped. My brain was clear, as was my skin. I could catch a jar falling off a counter before it hit the ground. I felt like a machine and my booty was getting rounder and higher. Wins all around, but especially in the back.
For nine weeks I ran. Every week, I added miles to my feet and knees and ran in short and long bursts hoping to make my race times shorter. In two 5K races, I placed at the top of my age group. Tuesdays burned my lungs, but I could cover the distance. Thursdays burned my muscles, but I could push through the weight. Saturdays I felt like a failure when, during each 400-meter training sprint, my body slowed down significantly after 250 meters. I sweet-talked and yelled at myself to push through: keep going, KEEP RUNNING GO GO GO ALUA! I even imagined I was getting chased by someone forcing me to wear high-heeled Crocs—all to no avail. On a track with elite amateur and some professional runners, I would run out of gas and sit down in the middle of the lane. A disappointment to my coach. Despite my Flo-Jo and Rocky dreams, my natural athletic ability and steel will, I could not sprint the full distance.
We changed my lifting schedule. I added more carbohydrates to my diet. I stopped distance running even though that’s what I loved. We tried shifting into shorter sprints, but they weren’t enjoyable for me. I’d tell my body that it could do anything. But it couldn’t sprint past 250 meters. When running at max capacity, my body would shut down at about 300 meters. Mind over matter does not always produce the intended result. My body won.
The mind is powerful. But the mind can’t do it all. The mind certainly cannot stop people from dying when the body in which it is rooted is ready. I’ve known many people who really want to live but still die, because the body has reached its end. At some point, the best we can do is listen to it, and trust the workhorse is tired and it is ready to die.
Those of us with privilege can stave off the inevitable for longer: buy the more expensive treatment, see the out-of-network specialty doctor. Likewise, perhaps with focused nutrition, hyperbaric chambers, and gait dissection, I could have run farther. But ultimately, you can’t outrun the body you’re in, or buy your way out of a sick and dying one.
But let’s not talk of our bodies as prisons. In these bodies, we have the privilege of experiencing the magical playground of Earth. Because of our bodies, we get to eat donuts, jump in puddles, smell rare spices, listen to children’s laughter, blow bubbles with gum, make art, make flan, and make love. Because we get to live, we get to die. Death does not happen to us. It is something that we do. To die is an action verb.
I want my body to be as full as the life I lead. I want to stay at home in this body for as long as I am able to ride this spinning blue ball. I recognize now that my earlier depression was an invitation from an empty body to fill it. Constantly seeking and never satiated, I was a hungry ghost for life. My lifetime of hunger for food (I wasn’t chubby for nothing) is also my hunger for connection, joy, meaning, and love. These days, I can’t make my body small if I want to. I can make it quieter, but I have chosen to live loudly. I have chosen to stand as close to death as I can, by accompanying people to their ends. And each time, in this profound process, I am reminded of the celebration of life and the enormity of our miraculous existence. All because of these amazing bodies we’re in.
What will it take for us to fall in love with our bodies? To trust them, honor them, and grant them release when death comes? Because by the time we have reached the end of our lives, our bodies invite us to surrender, having already luxuriated in the rich experiences of the world. All life eventually needs relief from the intricacy of living. Nature does what nature does. It has since time immemorial. Nobody gets out alive.