Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
The week of April 11, 2025
STRESS RELIEF Judy Wyper takes a walk in the woods to calm herself P.6
ANTI-AGING Peachland seniors slo-pitch league is keeping them young P.8
Visit our website at peachlandpost.org • Vol. 1 Issue 15
ABOUT TOWN Find out what’s going on and where it’s happening P.11
GOING DOWNTOWN Making downtown great again will require big changes P.3
Near Death Experience EXIT STRATEGY
Along with the concept of a good death as desirable comes the rise of the death doula By John McDonald
B
Staff Reporter
y time the average Canadian has reached middle age, they have likely witnessed dozens if not hundreds of deaths. But mostly what they have seen is the Hollywood version, which is of course is as far removed from reality as the typical movie plot itself. On screens large and small, death most often arrives with great violence, a hero or villain gasping out their last words through clenched teeth. Sometimes death arrives more peacefully with the heroine professing her last wishes or undying love, bathed in flattering light. But even gentle movie deaths bear little resemblance to the way the average Canadian exits this world, most often in a hospital or hospice, possibly heavily sedated and likely with what family they have holding vigil beside them. Real death is an abstract concept to most of us about which we know
John McDonald graphic illustration
next to nothing and are reluctant to talk about, this despite the fact that it is absolutely unavoidable. “There is so much misinformation about the end of life on everything from the legalities involved to how a body actually shuts down,” says Kelly Groenesteyn, a Peachland woman in the midst of the process of becoming a certified death doula through the End of Life Doula Association of Canada. At least part of that misinformation, she says, is due to our collective reluctance to broach the subject, even in the most general way. “No one wants to talk about death, though not talking about it doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen,” she says. “It is the one thing in life you absolutely cannot avoid.” The simple definition of a death doula is a non-medical professional trained to help people at the end of their lives, explains Groenesteyn. SEE DOULA PAGE 7
Get it while it’s hot... Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
peachlandpost.org • 250-859-4295