Hana Mizuno, End-of-Life Doula

How I began

I recorded my father over four afternoons in 2019, mostly because I could not think of anything else to do that was useful. Two years later my sister told me it was the only thing from that year she still listens to, and I retrained.

Why families choose me

Recordings are the part families keep. Not the forms, not the checklists — the forty minutes of someone describing the kitchen they grew up in, or reading a letter to a grandchild who is four. I bring a microphone and a set of questions, and I ask them badly enough that people forget they are being recorded. The rest of my work is the conversation that has to happen first: what matters, what they want the last weeks to look like, and what the family needs to know before somebody is too tired to explain it. I often work with the person who is doing all the caring rather than the person who is dying, because that is who is closest to breaking. Sessions happen at kitchen tables in the western suburbs, at the hospice, or on a call at whatever hour works.

Ownership