MAiD Rites & Ceremonies: Disrupting Death with Kelley Korbin

 ”I think we need to know that the possibilities are out there, that MAiD's not just a medical procedure, that even though this healthcare professional is coming with their kit and their medications and all of their social authority that they bring with them, that we get to slow it down and do some important things to remember our person.” This month, Kathy and Keri-Lyn have the pleasure and privilege of sitting down with Kelley Korbin to talk about her father’s death, the role of rites and ceremonies around MAiD, and writing it all down.  Kelley Korbin is a Vancouver-based communications professional. Her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, CBC, Ski Canada Magazine, and The Jewish Independent Newspaper along with countless crisis communication plans, corporate annual reports, and press releases. She did, however, draw the line at ghostwriting goodbye letters from her father to his six grandchildren. Like many people who’ve experienced MAID, Kelley found her dad’s 2022 death and the parade of lasts that preceded it to be a transformative and surprisingly healing rite of passage. As a palliative care volunteer for Vancouver Coastal Health and a MAID Family Support Society peer support volunteer, Kelley feels privileged to spend much of her spare time supporting dying people and their friends and family. She is writing a reported memoir about her father’s last days, entitled Exit Stage Rite: Lessons for a Brand New Way of Dying. Kelley holds a BA in cultural anthropology from the University of British Columbia, an MA in Journalism from Western, and is currently pursuing an MFA in creative nonfiction at the University of King’s College in Halifax.  Music for Disrupting Death was created by the ever-lovely Sarah McInnis. Sarah is a music therapist, a songwriter, a multi-instrumentalist and End-of-Life Doula. In 2021, Sarah began The Legacy Song Project, writing original songs for folks at the end-of-life, and for folks who have lost loved ones. To learn more about Sarah, visit her website https://sarahmcinnis.com. This episode of Disrupting Death was produced by Keri-Lyn Durant and Sadie Mallon.