Welcome to the Farewell Library: Explore, Learn, Reflect

A carefully curated collection of resources, media, courses, and reflections on death, dying, and grief.

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Death Doula’s Guide to Sitting With Dementia

A resource for caregivers and death doulas who seek to better serve those living with dementia.

Essays & Insights from Jade

Featured
Compassion Without Carrying
Compassion Without Carrying
Graveyards: A History of Living with the Dead
Graveyards: A History of Living with the Dead
Ralph Waldo Emerson Opened His Dead Wife’s Coffin
Ralph Waldo Emerson Opened His Dead Wife’s Coffin
Dementia Reveals What We Think Makes a Person Valuable
Dementia Reveals What We Think Makes a Person Valuable
Joan Didion’s “Blue Nights” and the Sharp Edge of Grief
Joan Didion’s “Blue Nights” and the Sharp Edge of Grief
I Followed the Body Into the Funeral Home
I Followed the Body Into the Funeral Home
Never Can Say Goodbye by Darnell Lamont Walker
Never Can Say Goodbye by Darnell Lamont Walker
Inside a Death Doula’s Toolkit
Inside a Death Doula’s Toolkit
When Hospice Volunteerism Becomes Extraction
When Hospice Volunteerism Becomes Extraction
Things I Refuse To Do As A Death Doula
Things I Refuse To Do As A Death Doula
A Choir of Presence: Music, Ceremony, and the Sacred Work of Death Doulas
A Choir of Presence: Music, Ceremony, and the Sacred Work of Death Doulas
You Don’t Have to Share Your Grief to Be Held in It
You Don’t Have to Share Your Grief to Be Held in It
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
5 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Hospice
5 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Hospice
What Does a Death Doula Do in Nashville?
What Does a Death Doula Do in Nashville?

Farewell Library Book Reviews

Morbidly Curious Historical Figures

Brightly lit exit sign with hanging string lights above, and the text 'EXIT INTERVIEWS' in large font with the word 'bevival' below. This is the flyer for the death literacy podcast hosted by Certified Death Doula Jade Adgate.

Exit Interviews Podcast

Jade partners with death literacy platform Bevival as host of their monthly podcast, Exit Interviews. Through engaging and welcoming conversations with authors, we can contemplate life’s deepest questions, long before the end.

  • On this episode of Exit Interviews, I speak with Day Schildkret about his books Morning Altars and Hello, Goodbye. We explore his reflections on mortality, grief, and creativity, and how an awareness of endings can shape the life we live and the stories we leave behind. Listen Here.

  • In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Kathryn Mannix, palliative care doctor and author of Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations and the international bestseller With the End in Mind. We explore how thoughtful conversations about life and death can shape the way we live, how we care for others, and how we meet our own mortality. Listen Here.

  • In this episode, I speak with Barbara Karnes, hospice pioneer, end-of-life educator, and author of The Little Blue Book. For over forty years, she has guided caregivers through the sacred and challenging work of accompanying the dying, and her booklets have become trusted companions for families navigating loss and transition. Listen Here.

Learn more

Why Death Literacy? Listen In.

Jade loves to talk books and death literacy. Listen to Episode #82 of Best Life Best Death Podcast to hear Jade’s discussion with Diane Hullet on How Reading Shapes Our Experience of Death and Grief.

Jade loves to create content about death literacy. See all Jade’s content on IG @the.farewell.library.

A few notes before the comments begin: No, I don't think an AI chatbot is the same thing as grief support. No, I don't think every use of AI in grief work is inherently unethical. And no, I don't believe this conversation is really about one perso
A few days ago, I shared 6 grief books I return to again and again. I expected some good conversation. I didn't expect this. More than 70 comments later, this community has recommended 36 additional books that helped them navigate loss, carry grief
What we call "death anxiety" is often more specific than we realize. For some, it's fear of the dying process: pain, dependence, loss of control. For others, it's fear of being dead: no longer participating in the lives of those we love,
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Event poster for a Farewell community gathering focused on a community grief circle in nature, featuring a fire to explore death and grief.
A community altar built by attendees of the Farewell event of the community grief circle hosted by Jade Adgate, certified death doula, and those she has trained in apprenticeship through Farewell Education.
Event poster for a Farewell community gathering focused on death literacy and grief education for death doulas and end-of-life workers, featuring a skeleton seated in front of a vintage television to explore death and grief in pop culture, with event
A photo of a candle-lit park shelter in Nashville, Tennessee, where certified Death Doula Jade Adgate, and her apprentices in Farewell Education, hosted a community wide grief circle.
Event poster for a Farewell-hosted death education gathering exploring psychedelic-assisted end-of-life care, ritual, and grief support, highlighting community collaboration, death doula education, and public death literacy programming.
Event poster for a Farewell-hosted community ceremony focused on death contemplation, ritual practice, and collective grief reflection, highlighting death literacy education, end-of-life dialogue, and experiential learning for death doulas and the wi
Community members gathering for a Death Church ceremony in Nashville, hosted by death doulas Jade Adgate and Bre Clark, preparing the space for grief reflection, ritual practice, and end-of-life contemplation.
Nashville community members gathered in a guided death meditation, hosted by death doulas Jade Adgate and Bre Clark, creating a sacred space for grief reflection, death literacy, and end-of-life contemplation.
A dimly lit room filled with people lying on yoga mats, eyes closed, participating in a guided breathwork exercise. Candles softly illuminate the space. The event is a Farewell Fellowships gathering hosted by death doula Jade Adgate, focused on commu
Participants lying on the floor under blankets in a candlelit room, engaging in a meditative experience at a death ed event. Hosted by death doula Jade Adgate, this Farewell Fellowships gathering supports death awareness, community building.
Grief ritual and death care workshop flyer with death doula Jade Adgate, featuring clay bowl, herbs, and candle honoring ancestors.
Materials on a wooden table—pine branches, foam ball, red string—for a grief ritual and death care workshop with death doula Jade Adgate.
Death doula Jade Adgate smiling and speaking with an elder during a grief support and death care session, guiding ancestor rituals and end-of-life preparation.
Death doula workshop with Jade Adgate: forty people crafting pottery altars with herbs for grief rituals, ancestor honoring, and death care practices.
Death doula Jade Adgate hosting a community gathering where women share conversation, connection, and grief support, practicing death care, end-of-life discussion, and ancestor rituals.
Kindred Spirits Holiday Mixer flyer for a death doula event hosted by Jade Adgate, featuring festive lights and snowflakes, focused on death care, grief support, and connection.
Death doula Jade Adgate with three apprentices by a Christmas tree, illustrating community care, fellowship, grief support, and connection through death doula work.
Three women smiling together at a decorated indoor space with a Christmas tree, engaging in community, grief support, and death conversations at a Farewell event with death doula Jade Adgate.
Three attendees at a Farewell death doula community event sitting on a black sofa, celebrating Christmas. One holds essential oil, another holds Memento Mori, illustrating death care, grief support, and community connection hosted by Jade Adgate.
Flyer for a shrouding and burial shroud weaving workshop hosted by death doula Jade Adgate in Nashville, teaching death care, grief rituals, and ancestor honoring.
Death doula Jade Adgate teaching a group about after-death care practices and sacred death midwifery skills in a cozy living room, fostering death care education, grief support, and community connection.
Woven burial shroud fragments on a table demonstrating natural decomposition, part of a death doula education event on death care and after-death practices with Jade Adgate.
Death doula Jade Adgate hosting a burial shroud loom weaving demonstration, teaching death literacy, home funerals, green funerals, and eco-friendly after-death practices in a cozy studio.
Death doula Jade Adgate demonstrating how to shroud a deceased body in a hand-loomed burial shroud, teaching death care, grief support, and after-death practices in a peaceful outdoor setting.
Death doula Jade Adgate hosting an outdoor burial shrouding demonstration, teaching participants how to shroud bodies and practice death care, grief support, and after-death rituals.
Flyer for a Death Doula Dialogue community gathering hosted by Jade Adgate at a Larkspur, educating on natural burial, and bringing death doulas together for connection, grief support, and death care.
Death doula Jade Adgate and an apprentice sitting on a wooden bench at Larkspur Conservation, discussing death literacy and grief support during a Nashville death doula community event.
An apprentice in the death literacy library at Larkspur, participating in a conversation during a death doula community event hosted by Jade Adgate, focused on death care, grief support, and death literacy.
Middle Tennessee death doulas gathering hosted by Jade Adgate for connection, continued learning, and community building, with participants engaging in conversation in a casual indoor setting.
Middle Tennessee death doulas at a gathering hosted by Jade Adgate, engaging in conversation and building community, connection, and ongoing learning in death care practices.
Logo for Death Doula Dialogues, a death doula community project founded by Jade Adgate to foster grief support, death literacy, and connection. Features skull-faced moth and tagline.

Have Questions?

Whether you're standing at the threshold of this work or deepening your path, I’m here to walk beside you. Reach out with your questions, curiosities, or clarities-in-progress, there’s no such thing as too small or too strange. Let’s find the right next step together.