Never Can Say Goodbye by Darnell Lamont Walker
Every time a death doula publishes a book about their work, I feel a mix of excitement and trepidation. Excitement because greater awareness of death doula work benefits both our field and the communities we serve. Trepidation because the way others describe this work often becomes the perception I later have to untangle in order to explain my own.
Never Can Say Goodbye: The Life of a Death Doula and the Art of a Peaceful End is a book I can wholeheartedly stand behind as a death doula. My conversation with Darnell Lamont Walker last week only deepened my appreciation for the honesty, tenderness, and complexity he brings to this necessary work.
Most books written by death doulas use storytelling to communicate the importance of core themes: presence, planning, grief literacy, and our culture’s deep discomfort with death. Darnell Walker, a children’s television writer by trade, is more adept at storytelling than most, introducing readers to people at the end of life in a raw, intimate, and deeply human way.
What distinguishes Never Can Say Goodbye from many books in this genre is its willingness to portray deathwork without idealizing it.
Too often, doulas tell stories centered around helping someone achieve a “good death.” And while those experiences absolutely happen, many people hire a death doula because they need an additional layer of support, advocacy, or education that falls outside the family system. In reality, death doulas are often called in precisely where systems have begun to fracture: systemic injustice, caregiving strain, estrangement, addiction, anxiety, fear, and trauma.
Darnell does not shy away from this truth. He does not romanticize dying or flatten the complexity of the people he serves. Instead, he speaks directly about the kinds of deaths doulas are frequently called to accompany: suicide, MAID, traumatic loss, estrangement, and complicated grief. That honesty felt refreshingly rare.
Another aspect of the book I deeply appreciated was Darnell’s perspective as a Black man and death doula in a field still largely dominated by middle-aged white women. He speaks candidly about issues that remain prevalent within Black communities — wariness of medical institutions, death anxiety, expectations around masculinity and emotional expression — while also illuminating the gendered ways our work is perceived.
Where I am often told I am “sweet,” “kind,” or even “an angel” for doing this work, Darnell is described as “strong,” with people telling him they could never be as strong as he is. The tension within that contrast comes into sharp focus in his chapter “Black Men Don’t Grieve,” when he recounts a mushroom ceremony in which a line of Black men, appearing in spirit, waited for the opportunity to move through him and cry because Black men are so rarely permitted to grieve themselves openly. It is one of the most haunting and memorable passages in the book.
Throughout both the book and my conversation with him, I was struck by how warm and inviting Darnell is. There is an openness to him, a posture of saying yes to life, that radiates through both his writing and his presence. We see his spontaneity, his commitment to embracing experience fully, and his dedication to helping others do the same.
From immediately saying yes to joining a small group and gathering over Zoom last Thursday evening, to encouraging us to move beyond our comfort zones and remain awake to the beauty and joy of being alive right now, the heart of who Darnell is shines clearly through his words and the way he moves through the world.
It is a gift to be part of a movement populated by kindhearted doulas like him.
For anyone curious about the work of death doulas, for anyone wanting reassurance that conversations about death deepen life rather than diminish it, and for anyone hoping to learn how to remain present with others through grief, fear, and uncertainty without losing sight of beauty or joy, Never Can Say Goodbye is an excellent place to begin.
If there’s a death and grief-relevant book you’d like to discuss in a virtual small group (with the author), please leave suggestions below.
Jade Adgate is a death doula, educator, and advocate. Through her work at Farewell Fellowship, Farewell Education, and Farewell Library, she guides others in exploring mortality and cultivating understanding, reflection, wonder, and care around life and death.
