Woodstock Death Care

Life, death, and transition care in Woodstock and the Hudson Valley.

We understand dying not as a process to control, but as one to meet with presence, awareness, and compassion. We accompany individuals and their circles of care in listening for what matters to them—honoring their values, spiritual orientation, relationships, choices, and ways of meeting what is unfolding. This supports us in the care we provide.

Our work is rooted in the arts of companionship: deep listening, attunement, and a willingness to stay alongside what may be uncomfortable or confronting, and also deeply intimate, loving and has potential for healing.

Our care may begin long before someone is actively dying and continue through and after death. We work alongside hospice, medical providers, funeral professionals, families, friends, and communities—supporting rather than replacing the relationships and care already surrounding a person.

At the heart of our work is a respect for process and for each person's autonomy: creating enough space for dying and grief to unfold in ways that belong to the individual and community experiencing them.

Woodstock Death Care is a community of three life, death and transition doulas, Kirby Lee, Cory Smith, and Jennifer Muir, offering companionship, spiritual care, practical support, and guidance through the many thresholds surrounding dying, death, and grief from a place of experience and presence.

How We Accompany

We believe people can be active participants in how they live with dying, how they care for one another, and how they tend to death and grief. Our role is not to determine what that should look like, but to offer experience, companionship, and practical support as each person and family finds their own way.

Life & Transition

Contemplative care planning, spiritual care, peer grief support, and companionship through periods of change, loss, illness, and transition.

Dying

End-of-life doula care, family and caregiver support, circle-of-care coordination, VSED and Medical Aid in Dying support, bedside presence, and vigil.

Death & After

After-death care, home vigil and home funeral guidance, ritual and ceremony, and support navigating the practical choices that follow a death.

Explore Our Services →

  • In this offering, we walk individuals and families through their care wishes over a series of sessions.

    Participants also receive a 40-page booklet that serves as a practical guide for defining how you might care for your parents, or how you would like to be cared for, during medical crises or at the end of life.

    This is a practical, contemplative process, creating space to live and die more consciously. It is suitable for people of any age and at any stage of health.

  • Spiritual care does not require a particular faith, belief, or spiritual practice. We understand it as a way of attending to the whole person and to the questions, relationships, uncertainties, and experiences that can emerge around illness, grief, dying, and transition.

    Our approach is rooted in the arts of companionship: listening deeply, staying curious, and making room for what is arising without needing to explain, fix, or resolve it. Depending on the person, spiritual care might include conversation, silence, ritual, contemplative practice, dream work, life review, creativity, or simply being accompanied through what is unfolding.

    We welcome people across religious and spiritual traditions, as well as those who do not identify with a tradition at all.

  • Support for individuals who are in the final phase of life - often when a person’s health is declining, treatments are no longer curative, and attention is focused on comfort, presence, and honoring wishes.

    We work alongside hospice teams, offering non-medical, complementary support. We bring a calm, compassionate presence to help ensure a person’s wishes are honored and upheld. We provide steady support to both the person who is dying and their circle of care, helping to cultivate a space of connection, reverence, and rest.

    During this time, we can also support planning for vigil and after-death care, if desired.

  • Bedside vigil takes place when a person is actively dying. It is a time for devotional presence. Loved ones may build an altar, sing, pray, meditate, or share stories, and we assist in creating a safe, sacred space. This may last hours, days or more. We work alongside other death care workers in my area as part of an informal community death care collective and this is the time where they are brought in if 24/7 vigil care is needed outside of the existing circle of support.

  • After a death, there is still care to be given. We support families in tending to the body with reverence and calm, honoring cultural, spiritual, or personal practices. This may include gentle washing, anointing, dressing, and creating a sacred space, following a pace that feels natural and that honors the wishes of there person who has died.

    Whether guiding a home vigil, preparing for a home funeral, or coordinating with funeral homes or hospice, we offer presence and practical support so that this tender time may unfold with intention, dignity, and love.

  • As a Home Funeral Guide, we educate and empower families to exercise the innate right of caring for their own dead.

    A home funeral allows families to care for their loved one after death in the comfort and intimacy of their own home. This practice honors the natural rhythms of grief, providing time and space for meaningful rituals, personal farewells, and community support.

    We collaborate with families and licensed funeral directors to preserve the family's autonomy in creating a personalized and meaningful farewell.

    Whether you're interested in a quiet vigil, a ceremony that reflects your loved one's values, or guidance through the legal processes, we offer support to help you navigate this sacred time with intention and care.

  • Item descriptionVoluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED) is an end-of-life choice in which a person with decision-making capacity intentionally stops eating and drinking in order to hasten death.

    Members of our collective have accompanied individuals and families through VSED, providing non-medical support before and throughout the process.

    Our role may include helping individuals and families prepare for what to expect, organizing and supporting the circle of care, coordinating with hospice and other medical providers, providing caregiver respite and bedside presence, supporting meaningful ritual or spiritual practices, and helping families prepare for vigil and after-death care.

    We do not replace hospice or medical care. We work alongside the person's clinical team while tending to the practical, relational, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the experience.

  • We support autonomy and informed choice at the end of life and are available to accompany individuals and families considering or choosing Medical Aid in Dying (MAID).

    Our non-medical support may include preparation and planning, family and caregiver support, coordination with hospice and the prescribing medical team, emotional and spiritual care, bedside presence, vigil, and after-death care.

    As Medical Aid in Dying becomes available in New York, we are continuing our education and developing relationships with organizations and medical providers specializing in aid-in-dying care so that individuals and families in the Hudson Valley can access knowledgeable, compassionate support.escription

  • Grief does not always need to be treated or resolved. Sometimes what is most needed is companionship—a place to speak openly, be listened to, and be with someone who has an understanding of loss and the many ways it can move through our lives.

    We offer one-on-one peer grief support grounded in lived experience, deep listening, and the arts of companionship. Sessions may include conversation, silence, reflection, creative or contemplative practices, dream work, or simply making space for what is present.

    Peer grief support is not psychotherapy or clinical grief counseling. We do not diagnose or treat grief. Rather, we offer a relational space in which grief can be witnessed and explored at its own pace, and can connect you with additional therapeutic, spiritual, or community resources when those forms of support may be helpful.

    Peer grief support may be available during caregiving and anticipatory grief, following a death, or during other significant experiences of loss and transition.