Grief in the Golden Years: Navigating Loss Together

Beth Montgomery
Mar 26
3 min read

I didn’t wake up one day thinking, "You know what? I’ll work with death!" But after sitting with my first actively dying person in 2015, I knew I had found my life’s work. That experience cracked me open. I went down a rabbit hole of research and discovered there was a name for the role I had unknowingly stepped into: Death Doula.

If you follow me on social, you already know I like to explore heavy topics in a more lighthearted way. I believe education and humor can coexist — especially in conversations around death, dying, and grief. So grab your curiosity (and maybe a tissue), and let’s talk about what it means to grieve well in our golden years.

WTF is a Death Doula?

A Death Doula is a non-medical guide who supports individuals and families through end-of-life. We provide emotional, spiritual, and practical care that fills the gaps traditional systems often miss — hospice, funeral homes, attorneys, etc.

We support both the dying and those left behind. That includes:

Holding space for hard conversations
Educating about end-of-life options
Legacy work and rituals
End-of-life planning (yes, even Swedish death cleaning!)
Emotional/spiritual support for families
Grief support before, during, and after a death

Fun fact: The word "doula" comes from the Ancient Greek word meaning female slave. We've come a long way from that meaning, but the spirit of humble service remains.

Let’s Talk About Grief

We’re going to cover three key areas in this blog that I also teach in my workshops:

Understand the Dynamics of Grief (specifically with our older adults)
Cultivate Compassionate Communication (no matter what age or dynamic)
Develop Practical Tools for Support

1. Understanding the Dynamics of Grief

Grief isn’t just about death. It’s about identity, roles, loss of control, and constant micro-losses. For older adults, grief often shows up as:

Loss of independence
Changes in social roles
Anticipatory grief
Deep loneliness

There’s a duality that isn’t talked about enough: the grief of adult children watching their parent decline, and the grief of the person who is dying. Both are valid. Both are heavy.

Sometimes, friends grieve differently than family. And older adults often grieve quietly, internally, or feel invisible.

Think grief is just "sadness"? Think again. Here are just a few types:

Anticipatory Grief
Ambiguous Grief
Disenfranchised Grief
Cumulative Grief
Spiritual Grief
Complicated Grief

And that's just scratching the surface.

2. Cultivating Compassionate Communication

Avoiding grief talk can make it worse. I once ran a grief support group in a retirement home, but because the "D" word was too much for residents, we named it Navigating Grief with Compassion and Understanding. It started way awkward — but magic unfolded. Because once people start talking, the healing begins.

Here’s the secret:

Be present.
Don’t try to fix.
Validate feelings.
Let the silence stretch.

"What do you miss most right now?" "What memory keeps showing up?"

Sometimes the most healing thing we can say is... nothing. Just witness.

Holding space is the art of being a safe, nonjudgmental presence. It means letting someone fully express their grief without rushing to soothe or solve. Let them FEEL.

3. Practical Tools for Support

Let’s get real — grief is a full-body experience. It lives in our lungs, our throat, our muscles. It gets stuck. As a Death Doula, I work not just with emotions, but the energetics of grief.

Grief can manifest as:

Muscle tension
Sleep issues
Digestive problems
Chest tightness
Fatigue

To support grief, we must move it. Here are some tools:

R.I.P. Method

R: Recognize the grief (name it)
I: Invite acceptance
P: Practice release

D.E.A.T.H. Method

D: Don’t suppress emotions
E: Express your feelings
A: Accept grief’s unpredictability
T: Take care of your body & energy
H: Hold space for yourself

Create rituals. Say their name. Make a memory jar. Take a walk. Scream into a pillow. Let grief move through you, not stay in you.

Reiki is one of my favorite tools for emotional release. It’s like saying to someone, "I see you. I feel you. I’m here."

Final Thoughts

Grief is love with nowhere to go.

It’s messy. It’s sacred. It’s ours.

And ultimately, people just want to be seen and heard.

If you take one thing from this post, let it be this:

Say less. Listen more. Let others feel. And when it’s your turn to grieve, give yourself permission to fall apart, rest, and come back home to yourself.

If you want to learn more, connect with me, or attend our Death, Dying & Grief (DDG) Annual Event in Hershey, PA.

Grief needs community. And I’d be honored to be part of yours.