Meet The Beacon Light Doulas

Registered Nurse, End-of-Life Doula “Doulagivers Institute”, Community Outreach & Educator,

“Death Over Dim Sum” Co-founder, Hospice Volunteer

Elizabeth Wong is a San Francisco native who grew up in Chinatown with a strong sense of family and community. This fueled her desire to be a Labor and Delivery nurse, a career choice that provided her the privilege of witnessing and participating in one of life’s most beautiful and sacred transitions: supporting two individuals becoming a family through the birth of a child. In addition, she embraces family-centered care that creates partnerships with patients, families, and their healthcare team to allow shared-decision making. For 15 years, she fulfilled this role by helping thousands of patients overcome their anxiety and fear about pregnancy and birth through education and engagement at the bedside. Since 2017, she has continued to focus her knowledge and expertise in supporting patients with high-risk pregnancies in the outpatient setting.

While Elizabeth was skilled in managing events at the beginning of life, she was confronted by not knowing how to engage her mother in conversations about aging and end-of-life. This lack of knowledge fueled Elizabeth’s desire to learn more. In the process, she trained to be an elder-care and end-of-life doula in 2018 through Doulagivers International. Since then, she has been sharing her doula role with the Chinese-American community in the Bay Area in California, and has helped many local families with end-of-life matters. She is most proud of the conversations she has had with her mother because these have taught her not only to honor but also how to overcome cultural barriers, language limitations, health illiteracy, generational gaps, parent-child dynamics, and fear. This personal experience has helped Elizabeth understand what it means to meet people where they are and to hold space. In doing so, she has had the privilege of witnessing and participating in another of life’s sacred transitions: bringing families together and finding peace through the death of a loved one.

Elizabeth is a strong advocate for community outreach and education by speaking about death and dying. She strives to empower others to empower themselves with knowledge and learning from one another. She hosts “Death Over Dim Sum” events, which provide a culturally relevant “Death Café” experience. She has been a featured speaker at events sponsored by the nonprofit organization ReImagine that has pioneered community-driven conversations that explore death and celebrate life. In 2021, ReImagine invited her to create and co-host the “Table Talk” series for the Asian American Pacific Islander communities. Elizabeth is also a hospice volunteer for By The Bay Health of Northern California. The culmination of these experiences guided Elizabeth to co-found Beacon Light Doulas, who along with her partners, are committed to offering compassionate services through birth, life, and death.

Certified Massage Therapist, Certified Birth Doula, Certified Midwifery Assistant, Certified End-of-Life Doula “Doulagivers Institute”, SFGH Doula Volunteer Task Force Member

Erica Falk is a San Francisco native who has spent over two decades as a certified massage therapist, birth doula and midwifery assistant throughout the Bay Area in California. This career path shaped how she sees the world. Erica’s biggest gift and passion has been supporting families through life’s many “major transitions”, not just childbirth. She feels a strong calling to take her unique skills of transitioning babies into the world and focus on life’s other great transition, the process of dying.

In 2018, Erica began her end-of-life (EOL) studies and work. She asked these important questions: “How do I want to be remembered? What happens when I die? What choices do I have to make? Who do I talk to about these choices? How do I get my wish heard? What legacy do I want to leave behind for my loved ones?” Erica realized if she had these poignant questions, then others certainly shared these same questions. That is when she knew that facilitating these most critical conversations with families was at the heart of her EOL passion.

Just as birthing babies had become the center of her life’s work for over 20 years, Erica now felt a strong calling to serve those transitioning into and through the end of life. She began to leverage her experience as a birth doula and holistic practitioner towards this new calling. Now she helps families carefully consider their choices, guides them as they navigate life-changing diagnosis, and shows them how and where to tap into available resources. When Erica completed her EOL doula certification with Doulagivers Institute 2019, she knew what her life’s work would be and that she was on the right path.

As a life-long artist, Erica also knew that her love of art could be used to help create for her clients, one-of-a-kind memorial pieces or legacy projects that can be treasured by loved ones for lifetimes. She is able to encapsulate cremains, personal treasures and other momentos into beautiful memorial art. She transforms sentimental photographs, videos and repurposing other personal belongings into meaningful visual and art pieces. Her mediums are paint, resin, metalwork, and custom jewelry.

Today, Erica considers Beacon Light Doulas (BLD) as the next right step in her life-long career of caring for others. Along with her partners, they are building a unique company that offers compassionate services so greatly needed at this time. Through birth, life and death, BLD is there to partner with families, communities, businesses, care providers and the healthcare system. Together, they encourage people to talk about what matters most to them, document their wishes and embrace the dying process with less fear and more understanding. No matter what stage or life phase we are in, there is always the possibility of quality of life.

Late-Life Transition Specialist, Grief Coach, Certified End-of-Life Doula

“Going with Grace” & Dementia Care Practitioner

Mary grew up in the Bay Area and has over 30 years-experience working with older adults at all ages and life stages and consulting for businesses serving Baby Boomers. Her expertise is in senior housing, care communities, senior and adult-day-care centers, senior nutrition and education programs, and now provides late-life transition and grief support to individuals and their families throughout the aging process. Her business experience includes organizational management, program development, marketing, community relations, and non-profit fundraising.

For over a decade, Mary also worked part-time as a parent advisor and family-centered care (FCC) educator at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, where her son received his life-saving cardiac care. She partnered with parents, specialty clinics and healthcare teams to improve services, hospital processes and care outcomes. These team efforts ultimately resulted in robust, nationally recognized FCC programs that helped usher in a new era of family inclusion and improved healthcare outcomes in hospitals across the nation.

Through her years of education and personal experience, Mary’s compassion and insights have deepened, particularly as it relates to the unique issues of advanced aging, complex family dynamics, acute-care pediatrics, and the multi-faceted world of death and dying. In 2019, she became both a certified end-of-life doula and dementia care practitioner and has added grief coaching, healthcare advocacy, end-of-life education and planning to her service offerings.

Today, Mary sees herself as a Life-Transition Specialist, which encompasses support and guidance for people regardless of their ages or health status. She considers Beacon Light Doulas (BLD) as the next right step in her life-long career of caring for others. Along with her partners, they are building a unique company that offers compassionate services which are so greatly needed at this time. Through birth, life and death, BLD is there to partner with families, communities, businesses, care providers and the healthcare system, and encourage people to talk about what matters most to them, document their wishes and embrace both the living and the dying process with less fear and more understanding.