This episode is a conversation with a special guest, Rose Zealand, who is a lovely human being with a unique passion and way of helping clients. Her practice, through a firm called Golden Thread Collaborative in Colorado, combines financial planning with end of life care as a death doula.
Rose works primarily with people in midlife who have received a potentially terminal diagnosis. She helps with both the financial and logistical realms of the life-shattering changes that come with such a diagnosis, as well as the emotional and existential realms of facing death too soon.
Rose’s career began some 25 years ago when through college and her early 20s she worked as a birth doula. She eventually moved into work with more conventional hours and, as she describes it, “I accidentally found myself in finance as a fallout from the great recession.” She found a job selling insurance, then moved into financial advising.
Her father’s death was the life event that led Rose to her current work. She was with him when he died, which she describes as “one of the most magical experiences that I had ever witnessed.” During the process of settling her father’s estate, in a conversation with a hospice doctor, she learned there was such a thing as a death doula. She had, for the second time in her life, a sense of a calling toward working with dying people. Then she realized that combining death work and her financial expertise filled a very real need.
One idea we touch on is the similarities between the process and labor of birth and the process and labor of dying. For Rose, understanding the dynamics and demands of the circle of care provided to the dying person is an important way to think about the end of life. This is something we tend to be afraid of and we rarely talk about.
Much of our conversation is about the impact money—including the lack of it—has for both the person at the end of their life and those who are caring for them. This is especially significant for people like the majority of Rose’s clients who are facing death at a relatively early age. She sees her role as a bridge between the financial and the emotional and spiritual aspects of dying. Her compassionate approach to both offers some valuable insights around a topic that we know to be important but are reluctant to consider.
Check out The Financial Therapy Podcast by Rick Kahler concerning this topic.