I’m giving up Christmas day with my child to spend it with a dying stranger

Katie Costello supports those who are terminally ill (Picture: Katie Costello)

For many, Christmas is a time of great joy and celebration, but for some it can be an incredibly different experience, especially if you’re dying or have recently lost a loved one.

This is something Katie Costello knows all too well, as a healthcare professional at St Catherine’s Hospice, and a qualified soul midwife, she regularly spends the Christmas period with those who are terminally ill.

The 41-year-old, from Horsham, West Sussex, says she’s always been drawn to the dying and has worked in and around end of life care for the last 10 years.

But it’s always this time of year that her job feels the most ‘poignant’.

‘People die every day of the year and that does not stop over the festive period,’ Katie told Metro.co.uk.  ‘And I think when you have those heightened seasons, then death and grief and bereavement can feel even heavier. 

‘We really feel it when other things around us seem very happy and jolly.’

This year, Katie’s Christmas will look slightly different than most as she’ll be working in the hospice over 24, 25 and 26 December. Giving up Christmas Day with her 12-year-old son and spending it taking care of those who might not live to see another Christmas.

‘My son and I are doing Christmas on the 27th and 28th, but it doesn’t really matter,’ she explained. 

‘Christmas is only one day of the year and my son knows all about my work and he understands the importance that for these people it might be their last Christmas here, or equally for some it’s the first Christmas without somebody.

‘Christmas is a tricky time, it’s so emotionally-loaded for so many, and if moving my Christmas dinner over by a few days will help, then I’m ok with that and so is my son.

‘I can do Christmas any day — these people can’t.’

The mum will be working in a hospice over the Christmas period this year (Picture: Katie Costello)

This isn’t the first time Katie has given up her time to help someone over the festive period. When she’s not working in the hospice, she’s often working as a soul midwife, also referred to as a ‘death doula’. This involves ‘guiding and supporting the dying in order to facilitate a gentle and peaceful death’.

As part of this, she’s happy to be on call for whatever her clients may need, which has previously involved a couple of Christmas Day callouts. 

‘Although soul midwives are not an emergency service, my phone is always on. One year there was a gentleman in a nursing home and I had been supporting him and his family, and he got really poorly at Christmas and they rang me in the morning.

‘So I drove over and popped in to offer reassurance. They just needed to know that everything was ok. Because it was such an emotionally-charged day, the panic was heightened.’

Katie also often finds herself helping strangers host Christmas celebrations much earlier in the year, so that families don’t miss out on the time together before a loved one passes.

‘Every year somebody I’ve supported has normally asked to bring Christmas forward, to have their own Christmas on a completely different day, in a completely different way.

‘We support people to have whatever a good death is to them. A big part of my role is that I am big on facilitating open conversations, not just about what death might look like, but between group dynamics, and part of that is normally to start throwing out these suggestions, like Christmas, about how we fulfil whatever rituals are important to them. 

‘As a family, Christmas is going to be important to your dying journey. How do we do that at another time of year and still make it feel as close to the real thing as possible? How do we ensure you feel what you need to feel? 

‘For one lady, she had two young children and was very poorly and bed bound, but what we did was we created Christmas Day upstairs in her bedroom. We decorated her room how the lounge would normally have looked, cooked the food, wrapped the presents and sorted the stockings and did everything that they’d normally do on Christmas morning.

‘It was important to her to have that experience with her children, opening presents and celebrating, before she died. 

‘This was about two weeks before Christmas, and sadly she did actually die on Boxing Day, so Christmas Day wouldn’t have been a good time for them if they’d waited.’

For most of us, working so closely with grief and loss every day would be far too heartbreaking, but it’s something Katie is adept at managing.

However, she admits it’s not always without its challenges.

‘I have to be very emotionally aware,’ she says. ‘I recently supported someone that was the same age as me, and there was someone else who was 38 and it does hit differently when it’s people that you think you might have been friends with, or you could have gone to school with.

‘You think “this is my age, this could be my son without his mum”, so I’m always emotionally aware of the things that upset me in different ways. And then I have to honour that within myself. So if I need to take a step back, or seek out clinical supervision or access some kind of emotional support, I’ll do that.

‘I also have my own spiritual practices which are a huge support in that. But one thing I have to have is the awareness and the strength to not absorb it all. It’s not mine. 

‘So although it’s heartbreaking and a lot of situations are emotionally challenging and very difficult, it’s not about me. I am there to be some kind of strength and safety for people.

‘I have that gift of being able to do it and not absorb it but also recognise when it does impact me and then deal with that accordingly later on.’

Katie’s role as a soul midwife involves a lot of strength, as it’s incredibly emotional (Picture: Katie Costello)

And for anyone who might be struggling with loss right now in the run up to Christmas, or is dying or knows someone that is dying, the expert shared a few words of advice for getting through this difficult time.

‘I would basically say do whatever feels right for you,’ she urges. ‘If you want to celebrate Christmas, celebrate. If you don’t, then don’t.

‘Don’t compare your situation or your feelings to anybody else’s, they are unique to you.’

She adds: ‘I think that’s the hardest thing at this time of year, we think we should be doing certain things and acting a certain way, and when our life and our situation and our emotions don’t match that, we find it really difficult.

‘So just do you, as what works for one person may not work for another.’

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