How can each day be better than the last?

May 6, 2025

Last spring I reconnected with the man who married me — not my husband, our wedding officiant, Michael Koran. (Michael would definitely have used that set-up as the beginning of a joke!)

Michael and I began meeting regularly this past year to talk about death. Anyone who knew him would not be surprised to hear that, as he was always posing and pondering existential questions. However, in this case it was because Michael was dying, and I was his death doula.

I first met Michael in 1999 at the Cambridge Center of Adult Education. I had just returned from some transformative years living in South America after college and was looking to continue exploring intuitive mind-body skills. His class called “Psychic Skills for Psychic Living” caught my eye.

The class was about as far from “woo woo” as you could get while talking about psychic phenomena — light-hearted, playful, and rooted in day-to-day practicality. Michael prompted us to ask: can we live our lives fully present, with all senses open and engaged? He approached class as much a student as a teacher, open-minded and inquisitive yet skeptical, nudging us to question our assumptions.

A group of us in that class really bonded, and Michael invited us to keep meeting in his apartment in Cambridge for a monthly potluck. We called it the “Psychic Supper” and continued to gather for several years. We would share our “psychic experience of the month,” help each other interpret dreams and intuitive ephemera, and explore spiritual matters. Looking back I can see how my approach to intuitive work was deeply influenced by his grounded, community-oriented perspective.

When Michael and I started talking again last spring after being out of touch many years, he shared that he had untreatable sinus cancer and was receiving hospice care at home. That was heavy, unexpected news. In any other year I would probably have been struck speechless. However, as timing would have it, I had just completed training as an End of Life Doula, spending months contemplating death and learning how to be present for the dying. I told him about the training and he responded with his inimitable booming laugh: “HA! I would love you to be my death doula!”

“Doula and Doulee”

We began meeting over zoom every few weeks to talk about whatever was on his mind and heart — his latest insights into the Old Testament, his plans to reincarnate, his increasing physical limitations, and his “mixed feelings” about approaching death. On the one hand, he had a deep curiosity and enthusiasm for what he called “the next big adventure.” On the other, he wasn’t ready to leave this one.

Every time we met, Michael would say, eyes open wide, eyebrows arched in wonder, “Each day is truly better and more amazing than the last.” As the months went on he began to add, “And also more challenging.”

In an email to me last October he wrote:

I might be traveling to the heavens soon.

A friend of mine reminded me of one of Groucho Marx's last thoughts:

it might be time soon for me
to stop buying green bananas.

In November, Michael and his long-time partner Michelle got married. He shared how much he was genuinely loving “married life.”

In January, even though he was having trouble speaking, he gave a public talk called: “Death is the Best Trip of All — That’s Why It’s Saved for Last” (a quote he took from Abbie Hoffman).

Our last “doula/doulee” conversation was on February 28. While he could barely speak at that point, Michelle held up the phone so that I could say goodbye. He was radiant. Michael died at his home on March 2, one day after his 84th birthday. Michelle reported that he was smiling until the very end.

This past year talking with Michael about death and dying was a profound gift that I’m still slowly unwrapping. A true teacher at heart, he shared his experience openly and modeled dying in a way that most of us never get to see. Frank, vulnerable, generous, and full of humor. I am grateful, and I will miss him.

Among the many thought-provoking and soul-stirring questions Michael left me with, there is one that I’m taking on as an assignment: can I experience each day as better than the last, even when it’s also more challenging? I’m going to try, and I invite you to join me!