δούλα

The word “Doula” comes from Ancient Greek meaning a woman who serves.

Coming from a place of personal experience, pure passion, and a desire to serve the dying, Denise is an End of Life Doula, Educator, and Hospice Volunteer committed to ensuring that her clients and their families never have to face the harsh realities of death and dying alone.

Known for her compassionate nature and loving ambiance, Denise brings a unique flavor to family-centered, holistic, non-medical support that enables her clients and their families to experience balance, acceptance, and resilience as they journey through the cycle of life.

Leveraging her calming perspective on death along with her own experiences of loss, she ensures that families are physically, practically, and functionally equipped and that her clients are comforted, heard, supported, and never lose their sense of worth as they approach their final chapter.

A native New Yorker based in Atlanta, Denise began her career in IT after attaining her undergraduate degree from the College of New Rochelle and her graduate studies at Columbia University Teachers College.

During her 21-year career, she was an IT Manager for the headquarters of the Episcopal Church, and an IT Consultant specializing in emerging technologies for a cross-section of Fortune 500 investment banking and legal firms on Wall Street. But in 2001, still reverberating from the trauma of 9/11, Denise vowed that her then network engineer position would be her very last corporate position.

Bio Sketch

With that as her impetus, she launched 21st Century Women Inc., a technology and media company devoted to empowering women to use technology as a tool of creative expression. This new venture unlocked Denise’s creative spirit and inspired her to devote her time and talent to crafting independent documentary films focusing on unity within the context of spiritual and cultural diversity.

Denise has lived, loved, worked, played, and prayed in 48 countries across 6 continents. Then, in 2009 after living in India and England for 10 years, she traveled to Atlanta for a long-overdue family visit. Little did she know that her carefree, colorful, eclectic, adventurous life was destined to take a sudden, unexpected turn.

Her Why

During what was intended to be a short visit with her family, her Mom had a stroke. With the tenacity, commitment, and focus she embodies when facing life’s challenges, Denise spent the next eleven years serving as her Mom’s primary caregiver and ultimately a tour guide to her final destination.

Experiencing her Mom’s death through her love-tinted glasses as natural, sacred, graceful, peaceful, pain-free, inevitable, and her final rite of passage, Denise’s relationship with, and understanding of, death and dying was completely transformed.

Denise attributes this transformation in large part to an End of Life Doula, Narinder Elizabeth Bazen, whom she hired during the last three months of her Mom’s life. She says, “having Narinder on Mom’s care team was a total game-changer.”

“Narinder educated my family on what, when, and how the body is designed to die, she coached us on unique ways to support Mom, she sat vigil with us, and she was always just a phone call away. She made sure that we understood the assignment.”

Once the dust settled after her Mom’s death, Denise spent the next three years training, apprenticing with Narinder, and getting certified as an End of Life Doula. Her goal? Surely not to change the outcome but to change the journey. How? By paying it forward and helping others orchestrate the best possible exit strategy for themselves and their loved ones.

❝ Taking care of my Mom was, and continues to be, the gift that keeps on giving. It was a sacred honor and privilege to be her caregiver and to love on her until she took her very last breath. It was by far my life’s crowning achievement. I fully understood, accepted, and will continue fulfilling the assignment for other people who are nearing their end of life in honor of my Mom, who taught me how to live and who taught me how to die. ❞

From getting to know and understand people beyond the surface level, to guiding them to new levels of readiness amid unreadiness, nothing makes Denise more fulfilled than being a support pillar during one of life’s most unbearable experiences.

Denise has an inherent passion for guiding people towards a vision of what’s possible, not only in her role as a Doula but also as a trusted confidant and mentor offering guidance, perspective, and knowledge of the death and dying landscape.

Her How

In the end, death is inexplicably bound to life, and, to the degree possible, you can truly live as you prepare to die. The best way of embracing this perspective is to have someone in your corner who has walked the walk and understands the trajectory of your end of life journey.