I can be a little slow to get things started, I’m working on getting this resource ready. I didn’t really consider that having a site early on might be helpful (ya boi ain’t the best planner). In the meantime, my email is sisterbael@gmail.com.

My work is in service to the ill, the caretakers, the dying, and the bereaved. My primary focus is death work, though the mourning involved with living a life deeply impacted by illness calls to me as well.

A bit of a bio

Well, perhaps not a bio so much as “Relevant Experience”

In 2018 I was diagnosed with brain cancer, one which cannot be fully eliminated, and for which there is not enough data for survivors beyond 10 years for researchers to make claims about prognosis. This launched me into a very different world from the one which I had previously inhabited. My body would now remind me viscerally of my mortality with infuriating frequency. I also had a new cohort of friends who would highlight the particular ravages of that mortality.

At my diagnosis, I was fortunate enough to land in a community of mutants [more on that word at a later date] who taught me how to be sick, live, recover, and never truly recover but live anyway. The mutants also taught me how to mourn. In that community, we mourned not only our friends’ passing, but our mutated dreams and our own lives.

I grew up very religious in a culture that taught me to live in community by living in service to each other. In that world, community meant proactively seeking to take care of each others’ needs. Despite the many failings of that world which led to me leaving, I longed for bits of that community that I couldn’t find in my more typical [work, sports, etc.] social activities.

There’s a longer story here, which I’ll spare you. Suffice it to say that when I moved to Denver, the presence of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence gave me something I had been seeking for a while: a community geared towards service.

What I can do for you

The first thing we will do is meet to start determining what your needs are. This list is not exhaustive, I’m always open to new ways to help.

Presence and Attention

I will come and spend time with an ill or dying person to provide company, attention, and support. Perhaps we go on a wheelchair walk, or I write down some stories from the old days. Maybe I just sit in the room reading aloud, waiting to fetch a drink or adjust a blanket

• Caretaker relief
  • Often, the loved ones of someone who is in the process of dying become overwhelmed by the amount of time needed to keep the dying person comfortable. No one should die alone, but too often the weight of that falls on one or two people. I will come and sit with you or your loved one, giving companionship and taking care of basic needs, so that the caretaker[s] can take some time to recover or attend to pressing needs.

Legacy Work

• As we near our ends, we often face comprehending what we are going to leave behind.
  Example legacy projects: (I haven’t done all of these specifically, ideas from those in the field)
  • Quilts made from a grandfather’s flannel shirts given to grandchildren
  • A person who had cooked holiday meals for their extended family for decades made a cookbook with all of the important recipes
  • audio recordings of important family stories
  • A volunteer created a scent box for the family of a mechanic. The volunteer collected a box of tools, bits of his work jacket, and a bottle of the cologne he wore. His family could bring back his memory by smelling the way he smelled when he came home for the day, something his children all remembered with fondness

Spiritual Care

When I say spiritual, I don’t mean to imply anything metaphysical, or the existence necessarily of anything beyond the material plane. Spiritual experience, as I see it, is our experience of connection with that which is beyond ourselves.

At least in the American cultures that I have experienced, we have largely abdicated “spiritual care” to large religious institutions. This is to our profound detriment. As a queer person, I have been robbed of the access to the spiritual home of my youth. Many of us have been denied the spiritual communities in which we feel fulfillment.
I feel we ignore our spiritual needs at our own peril, and am called to help you seek out and meet your own spiritual needs

Help around the home

Need a shelf hung or some meal prep done? Grass getting longer than you like it? nothing too mundane, needs are needs are needs and I’m here to help.