Conversations with Jade Adgate

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jade Adgate.

Hi Jade, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
As a native New Orleans girl, I’ve always been surrounded by death. Walking through a crumbling city, surrounded by mausoleums and dancing in second lines, death, and grief were the landscape of my life. In college (at LSU), I went through a series of hard losses: my grandparents and great-grandparents all died within those tender years and were bookmarked by Hurricane Katrina. Following the storm, I became a custodial caregiver for an elderly great aunt and began to learn the ins and outs of caring for the aging and infirm, eventually supporting her dignity as she moved into hospice support. In her memory, I wanted to pay forward all that I had learned to support her so I decided to volunteer for my local hospice for one year in her honor.

In that year of hospice volunteerism, I saw so many gaps in end-of-life care that I felt called to fill. My first end-of-life doula training was completed in January of 2020 and I started my private practice of death midwifery the following year. Farewell Fellowship has been growing ever since but needed a little more mentorship. In the fall of 2021, I began a nine-month death midwifery apprenticeship and completed my Home Funeral Guide training.

Today, Farewell Fellowship is my in-person death midwifery and home funeral guidance offering for the greater Nashville area. I also provide virtual support through The Farewell Library, which is a curated resource hub for all things death and grief. I mentor aspiring and upcoming death doulas through The Farewell Library, publish death and grief-related book reviews and host virtual events, such as the Virtual Death and Grief Book Club, which meets on the last Tuesday of each month. This year, Farewell Fellowship is expanding into The Farewell Apothecary to offer herbal support to those who are ill, dying, grieving, and their caregivers.

All three of these branches (Farewell Fellowship, The Farewell Library & The Farewell Apothecary) are designed to offer fellowship to my community as we fare well throughout the end-of-life and grieving process.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As you can imagine, I am steeped in grief. I always have at least one friend who is dying and grieving. The hardest part of my work is honoring what I need to show up with a big open heart, a calm, steady presence, and a sharp, clear mind amidst the amount of grief that I carry.

I am learning to take true care of myself first and allow that to ripple out to the care that I can offer to my community.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Death midwifery is an ancient tradition but a relatively new profession. There are many ways to practice death midwifery and our growing community here in the greater Nashville area demonstrates all the different nuances we can bring into end-of-life spaces. I offer full-spectrum, holistic end-of-life care. That means that I serve every step of the process from advance care planning, pre-hospice consultation services, respite support, vigil planning and attendance, home funeral guidance, and bereavement support. Essentially, if you’ve ever wished you had a close friend who understood the in’s and out’s of caring for someone at the end of their life, I (and the other death doulas and midwives) am the resource here in our local community to support you.

Each death midwife brings their own unique gift to the way they serve in these spaces. I am an avid reader and writer and have used these gifts to encourage ‘death literacy’ or the idea that normalizing conversations about death allows us to feel more empowered concerning end-of-life issues. I always bring a book to my bedside work, I love to read aloud when that is comforting to the person I am companioning. Writing book reviews, hosting book clubs, and speaking about death and grief are all the parts of my work that I am most proud of and what sets me apart from other death doulas and midwives; especially when I am able to ask questions in end-of-life spaces that aren’t part of collective conversation.

We love surprises, fun facts, and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I read about five books a week. While many people know this, what I talk about less is that I love to read romance novels. So much of the reading I do is heavy and I enjoy balancing it out with books that are light, funny, and steamy.

But even in these “fluffy” novels, the themes of death and grief surface often. It’s such a good reminder to me that death and grief touch all parts of our lives and is currently that run through so much of the human experience.

Pricing:

• In-home Death Midwifery = 90/minute home visit, $125
• Virtual Death Midwifery Support = 60/minute, $100
• The average package for full-spectrum death midwifery is 40 hours of support, $4,000
• Virtual Consultations = 30-minutes, $35
• Grief Support = 60/min, $100

Contact Info:

• Website: www.farewellfellowship.com
• Instagram: @the.farewell.library
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Farewell-Library/100087020421394
• Other: https://www.bevival.com/library 

Image Credits
Painting by Heidi Fox; Headshot photo by Corryn Klosky; and Graphics by Jade Adgate