From World Radio, this is Double Take. I'm Les Silers.

When I was kind of in my late 30s, I went back to work after having been a stay-at-home mom.

Laurel Marr is a Christian woman in her mid-40s. She's about five-foot-four with brown hair and bright green eyes.

And I went to work in a church. Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City, New York.

The job was parish administrator.

And one of the questions they asked me in my interview was, how do you feel about, you know,

cremated remains on your desk? And I was like, what? And sure enough, there were oftentimes

that I did have an urn of cremated remains on my desk because we had a funeral that afternoon.

Having human ashes on your desk might seem a bit creepy, but Laurel was okay with it.

I grew up in a family with a father who was a physician and death was, you know, a pretty normal discussion at my home.

I saw my grandparents, you know, and they were dead. And so it was

always just, you know, a normal thing for me. Over the next few years, Laurel often helped

the rector of Calvary Episcopal with funeral planning. She worked with the families of the

deceased, and she went to visit sick parishioners. She had a good bedside manner for that kind of work.

I wanted to be a nurse when I was young, but then my life went in a different direction.

In 2019, she landed another job at All Angels Episcopal Church because she had organized a funeral

there. They were impressed. The priest introduced Laurel to the

concept of a death doula. Laurel had no idea what that was. The priest wasn't exactly clear about it

either. And she said, I don't know much about it, but it's kind of an up-and-coming trend. I think

you should look into it and see, you know, if there's, you know,

space for a Christian to be in this role.

Laurel came to find out that doula is a Greek word meaning servant or slave.

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