Death of an Expert

On Becoming a Messenger...finally.

At age 20, I changed my legal name, including the name "Malachy," meaning “messenger.” I chose my name, and then I promptly rejected it. I didn’t want to be a messenger; I wanted to be an expert because experts are listened to.

At the same time, I stopped listening.

I resisted messages that were calling me towards different paths. I resisted messages that told me I could pull together all the different scattered parts of me—music, community, grief, silliness, color, queerness, unlearning, healing, food, touch, and lived experiences as a foreigner in foreign lands. How could all of those combine to be one thing, to make me whole?

I was always a writer, but I wasn't a messenger. Instead, I put my writing into rigid clinical structures to prove I belonged in the room. I was too busy trying to prove my success to notice that my actual gifts, the ones that showed up when I was off the clock, the ones tied to community, joy, and evolution, were the ones that truly mattered to me.

I ignored the potential for connection because I was too busy trying to look like I had all the answers. 

The Great Reframing

So what changed? I got older. I became a mother. Nothing humbles you faster than your teenage daughter proving every day that you don't know everything with a scornful side glance or an undecipherable text acronym. Nothing is more beautiful than motherhood and learning that you don't know everything. 

So what changed? I met grief. I've experienced both the breathtaking beauty and the hollowed-out silence of loss. I've walked with others, veiled in grief, with ashes, dust, sparkling memories, and cempasúchil petals billowing around us. 

I became friends with death, and suddenly, life joined us for coffee. 

On Unlearning and Meaning-Making

I grew up in a world of strict Christian dogma where the message was handed over to me and demanded of me. When I left that world, I had no message because I didn't know my own meaning. I fumbled a lot. I made a lot of mistakes. (For many years, I found meaning in alcohol. That's a story for another day.) 

Stephen Fry and the delightful comedy panel show QI (Quite Interesting) introduced me to Humanism. An interview in The Guardian sparked my curiosity. Quickly, I agreed: yes, humans are innately good, and that goodness isn't tied to fear or rigid rules but rather to ethics and a connection. 

So my message today is... humanity. It's not always optimistic, but it is undeniably and always pro-hope.

As a mother, democratic socialist, progressive leftist activist, and Humanist, I ask that we fight for something, even as we fight against oppressive systems. I’ll show up at all the protests to shout about what we need to tear down. But I want to spend as much time strategizing and co-creating… building something better up. 

On Reframing Death

I am not an expert on death. I can’t be because I haven’t died yet. The fact that I now embrace a career that I can’t be an expert on proves just how far I’ve come. 

I am a death and grief doula. I work with the dying and their families to advocate for their good death and to walk through the grieving process. I work with those willing to acknowledge death, even when it isn't imminent, to make space for their values and vision. End-of-life planning comes with an image of long illness and bedside vigils (aka, plenty of lingering afternoons to get affairs in order), but death almost never works on our timetable.

I also work with people who are grieving from burnout, chronic illness, and other life transitions that have created loss. I help communities create rituals of secular, sacred care that open conversations about grief surrounding death, the loss of safety, the loss of connection, and the trauma of losing someone to mass incarceration or deportation. 

I talk about death eagerly with parents, with single people especially—because they need a plan and a posse like nobody’s business—and I even enjoy talking about death with children. I’m not an ogre… and I promise I do my very best to wait until I’m asked before I start the Grim Reaper gab. 

I've learned that when you really understand the values that you want to carry into your death, those same values will carry you through your life, making decisions easier and challenges far less scary. Meanwhile, your status and ego, all that noise and artifice, will fall away.

This is The Reframery because I'm stepping back into that “Malachy” energy. 

I’m open to receiving messages and sharing what I’m learning and unlearning, even as the reframing is still coming into view. There’s probably going to be some messages that come through that I’m not quite ready for. I’m okay with being honest about that hesitancy and exploring it here, frankly and honestly. After all, I’ve already gotten frank and honest with death… what could be scarier?