The Community Corner Spotlight - Meet Brynn

In this edition’s community corner, we’d like to introduce one of Beyond the Veil Doula Collective’s own community members, Brynn Albanese. Brynn is one of the collective’s newest members and brings a wealth of knowledge, talent, and healing experience to the deathwork arena. Get acquainted with her work in the interview below:

What initially drew you to the field of death work, and how has your relationship to this calling evolved over time? 

In 1996, my best friend from college pulled his own plug due to the effects of end stage AIDS on his body. I was scheduled to see him the day after his passing and I had not seen him for a very long time. He left a note for me saying that he didn't want me to see him in that way, but to remember him the way he was before. 

Four years later my own brother committed suicide due to mental illness at age 33.

Six years after that, my fiance committed suicide due to mental illness and drug addiction 

And then finally, eight years after that, my best friend from college committed suicide from depression.

I often heard my brother speak about his mental illness… like a cancer. A cancer that had no chance to be cured. He talked about death a lot and after all of those losses, I realized that these people that meant so much to me, definitely did not have good deaths...and was there really such a thing as a good death?

At that point, I was not a good person to talk about suicide with, but I did become fairly obsessed with death. 

I watched as many videos of people taking their last breath as possible, and cancer journeys from start to finish. It just went on and on. And I didn't know why I was doing it. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me. Little did I know that was the beginning of my journey to becoming an End of Life Doula.

2. In your view, what is sacred about dying?

I suppose I have my own definition of sacred. I believe the word sacred can mean so many different things. When you attach the word with dying, for me, it comes down to the individual and how unique each human being is, truly. An individual, set apart from any other living being. Though I believe in a higher power, I am not religious. Therefore, the word sacred has not the same meaning for me as it does for someone who is religious. 

Dying is a human event.

3. Could you elaborate upon the role of music in your practice?

Music is organized sound. Sound is vibrations and frequencies. Frequencies affect our nervous systems in the form of resonance. Music is a trigger. For thousands of years, cultures have been using music to inform their people of death or impending death. Trumpets, bells, and voices carried in the wind. 

For me, music is one of the most powerful tools that can be used for healing and therapeutic purposes. Accompanying allopathic conventional medicine, music can be so important for the dying. 

It has the ability to calm the nervous system. Even someone with terminal agitation has the possibility of responding to music. I have seen it with my own eyes more times than I can count. And then, with my own Mother during her transition to actively dying. 

Terminally agitated, the low and slow vibrations of my bass wooden flute penetrated every cell of my Mother's body during the metabolic war that was going on inside of her body as she slipped into the actively dying phase. Music even in the most simple of forms, presented as a service and not as a performance has been a transformational experience for me.

5. Is there a practice, value, or tradition you feel is missing—or could be more honored—in contemporary death care?

I love the celebration of a life well lived. 

But what if the person who is dying or who has died is unknown? What if they had no family? For me personally, every human should be recognized. Though not everyone has great luck in their lives. If they've had a horrible life, or were an evil horrible person... does that make them not worthy of any type of death care? I often think about that. For me, it always really comes down to something that is not very glamorous, if I can use that word.  And that is, education. Families and people that I have worked with most of the time seem so uninformed about death and the steps and phases of it. Just like I had to reach out and learn about death. It's not something that's out to get us, it's not this terrifying thing that we can make go away. We are living, and then we die. Everything that happens between those two things is different for every single living thing. For me, it all comes back to education. So many cultures from a very early age begin to speak about death with the very young. The vigils and the rituals that surround celebrating someone who is no longer there I believe should be much more prevalent death care in the United States especially.

6. As a practitioner immersed in emotionally intense care for others, how do you fill your cup & prioritize replenishing your energy or maintaining a sense of wellbeing? 

Most of my professional life revolves around being a Certified Music Practitioner. I treat people with music by the bedside. I treat the staff of medical facilities in the hallways. And I use the word "treat" very carefully. Playing music as a performance and music as a service are two completely polar opposite ideas. 

As long as I get to have my music be a performance in other parts of my life, recording for different artists, creative projects, I think I'm good. Also, what feeds me is nature and family. New experiences and taking a few risks in life always seems to nurture me the way I need to be nurtured.

7. What pivotal experience, lesson, or philosophy most shapes how you offer care at this point in your journey?

If someone asks me to be an End of Life Doula, they pretty much already know what they're getting. Music is a huge part of my deathcare plan. Live music as much as possible. Not recorded. Even though recorded music is okay, but you can only get those real frequencies and vibrations and resonance with live music from a real instrument. 

8. What factors help to ensure a person has a good death?

Ensuring that there is a non-emotional entity in someone's home during preparation for death has been extremely important. A level-headed person that knows the facts and can separate themselves from the emotional situations that arise as someone is dying. 

I always make sure to try to normalize for the patient and the family. Normalize what is going on with the body. Normalize the steps that the body takes as it begins to shut down. Taking the fear out of the equation is often something that is very challenging. Oftentimes I ask the family to try to separate themselves just for a moment at a time from the emotional part of themselves, to focus on the factual part of what is going on. For some this seems to help. 

9. What legacy do you hope your work leaves—for individuals, communities, or the field of death care itself?

I feel like music is medicine and with each patient that I see by the bedside no matter what stage of illness they are combating, each experience that I have is part of my own journey  to becoming human. 

I never really realized what being human really was until I started caring for someone —especially someone that I loved dearly, my own mother. Treating her like a baby at the end. The kind of loving care that she gave me when I was just little helpless child. I was giving her that care as a 90-year-old woman. The experience just astounded me.

10. How do you navigate grief in your own life while supporting others through theirs? 

I reach out for a compassionate ear, a book of writings, other people's experiences with grief. Making grief my companion, and knowing that without love there's no grief; without grief there's no love. I do know that I can't just go on if something happens that is painful in my life. I do need to stop, take note of the situation and then take the steps to make sure I'm dealing with my own needs in that department. That's saying that we hear all the time on airplanes, "Please put your mask on first before you help others." 

If grief knocks on my door, I open it. I invited in for tea, we talk and then it leaves again. I fully understand that it will be back, but I have learned to live with it.

If you’d like to experience more of Brynn’s work, head over to her website: http://brynnalbanese.com/