Alua Arthur has been an outsider all her life. At 3 years old, she moved from Ghana to the United States and was immediately immersed in a culture that set her apart from those around her. 

As she grew up, she believed the best way to succeed was to follow a traditional path, so she enrolled in law school—despite knowing it wasn’t the right fit. Still, she persisted, intent on blending in and following the paths of her peers. “I felt like a hexagon-shaped peg trying to fit into the square hole,” she says.

Shortly after, she fell into a deep clinical depression. She lost weight, her face changed, and she was surviving on little more than red wine and cigarettes. “I wasn’t sad, necessarily, I was hopeless and despondent,” she explains. “I had retreated all the way deep inside my spirit, I think to protect from the life that I knew wasn’t the one that I was supposed to be living.”

Desperate for change, she decided to travel to Cuba for a few months in hopes of finding clarity. While waiting at a bus stop, she met a woman named Jessica—someone who would change the entire trajectory of her life. 

When Jessica asked Arthur what had brought her to Cuba, she answered honestly: She didn’t know. But when she turned the question back to Jessica, the response shocked her. Jessica said Cuba was one of the top six places she wanted to see before she died.

Jessica had terminal uterine cancer, and she had come to Cuba to fulfill one of her final wishes. She refused to spend her last days solely dying; she wanted to fill them with as much adventure, joy, and life as possible. 

Something in Arthur clicked. She spent their 14-hour bus ride asking Jessica question after question, eager to understand her relationship with death and how she was able to find peace in the face of it. Jessica answered everything, from her treatments to the visions she had on her deathbed. “This conversation with Jessica certainly made it clear for me how living dead I’d been for so long.”

For the first time, Arthur felt an urgency in her own life. She returned to the United States determined to reevaluate everything. Shortly after, her brother-in-law, Peter, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. When treatment was no longer an option, she found herself facing death again—this time, within her own family.

“This time with Peter, following the time with Jessica, tremendously shifted how I see life and death. It helped me see that each individual is an entire universe into themselves and they will all meet their end one day.”

The experience solidified her path. Arthur left her legal career and dedicated herself to becoming a death doula, determined to provide others with the support she wished Peter had received. “I want people to know that their lives matter and that their death ultimately will too,” she explains. She helps others find power in dying and supports families through the process so that instead of worrying about logistical arrangements, they can focus fully on feeling and understanding their own grief. 

In 2015, she founded Going With Grace, an organization that helps individuals and families navigate the emotional, spiritual, and logistical challenges of dying. Her programs provide training materials for those interested in becoming death doulas, as well as educational resources for those nearing the end of their lives. And in 2024, she became a New York Times bestselling author with Briefly Perfectly Human.

Arthur, now 46, says confronting and ultimately embracing death has transformed her in ways she never anticipated. “Prior to finding death work, I’d never stop to proverbially smell the roses or to figure out what I wanted with my life. Now I kind of lean into the weirdness and allow myself to be just as I am.”  Now, she moves through life with a newfound urgency and authenticity, fully present in each moment, and she implores others to do the same. 

We interviewed Alua Arthur for Perception Box Stories Untangled, a Big Think interview series created in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators. As a creative non-profit organization, they’re on a mission to help people challenge their perceptions and expand their thinking. Often that growth can start with just a single unlikely question that makes you rethink your convictions and adjust your vantage point. Watch Arthur’s full interview above, and visit Perception Box to see more in this series.

Words by Kaylee Frazee

ALUA ARTHUR: Wake up!

All of us! Wake up! Like, we're going to die.

I want us to live like that.

I want us to feel like that.

I want us to behave like it.

I want us to live with the urgency of our lives. Not in the way that we must go out and do all the things immediately, but to live in our lives and not just watch them pass us by.

My name is Alua Arthur, and I am a death doula, an author, and the founder of Going With Grace.

I've been an outsider all my life. I was born in Ghana, but we left Ghana when I was about three years old. Moving to the United States, not only were we in a new culture, but race also created a bit of a distance between me and the people who lived there. At every turn, I felt like somebody who sat outside of the rest, and in my head, anyway, I didn’t measure up.

It made me angry. It made me sad. It made me defensive. It made me frustrated. And so one way to fit in is to play by the rules. So, I chose law school.

I felt like a hexagon-shaped peg trying to fit into a square hole. The sense of continuing that life felt like an anvil sitting on my chest. This led me directly into the heart of a thick, clinical depression.

I felt like a houseguest in my own body. There was the tiniest little pinprick of light or life left inside. I wasn’t sad, necessarily. I was hopeless and despondent. I had retreated all the way deep inside my spirit, I think, to protect myself from the life that I knew wasn’t the one I was supposed to be living.

Depression had clouded my sense of the gravity of things. Little things felt like big things, and big things felt insurmountable. I had probably lost about 40 to 50 pounds without really trying. I was living on red wine and smokes. You could see my ribs in the front and the back. My eyes were deeply sunken in.

I describe this body to say that this is not the body that I’m used to living in. I wasn’t capable anymore of managing life at all.

And finally, my friend Kristen—she saw me. She saw everything. And I let her. And when I let her see it, then I couldn’t hide from myself anymore either.

I was trying to escape my life. I was hoping I’d go someplace and find something that would make all this worth it. So I went to Cuba.

In Cuba, I traveled for a week and a half, two weeks, just wandering around. Eventually, I made it to the bus stop, where there was a woman in line in front of me with a red quill pen tattoo on her forearm. We started having this great conversation.

This conversation with Jessica brought me back to life.

She asked what I was doing in Cuba. I said I didn’t quite know—I was there to see what I could see. I asked her what she was doing in Cuba, and she said she was there because it was one of the top six places in the world she wanted to see before she died.

Because she had uterine cancer.

It was one of those moments where time just kind of stood still. I thought, Wait, what?

She explained that she’d been ill with this disease for some time, that she’d always wanted to travel to a few places, and Cuba was one of them.

I was stunned.

She was only a couple of years older than I was. And it was one of the very first times that I was confronted with my own mortality—that somebody about my age was thinking about her death and was doing things to actively prepare for it, like seeing the world.

I asked her a lot of questions about her disease. I asked about surgery. I asked about treatment. But then, ultimately, I also asked her about death.

And she answered.

At some point, I asked her who she saw on her deathbed, and she said she saw somebody who hadn’t done what she’d wanted to do with her life.

That broke my heart.

But through talking about death, it became clearer that she was able to pinpoint the type of life she wanted because of her dying. It was very instructive for me, because it also allowed me to think about myself on my deathbed and the type of life that I wanted.

This conversation with Jessica certainly made it clear for me how living dead I’d been for so long.

When I came back from Cuba a few months later, my brother-in-law became ill. And about four months after that, they couldn’t treat him anymore.

This time with Peter, following the time with Jessica, tremendously shifted how I see life and death. It helped me see that each individual is an entire universe unto themselves, and they will all meet their end one day.

But if we could find a way for them to meet their end in a compassionate way—one where somebody can journey alongside them, answer their questions, hold their hands, hold their hearts—that could be incredibly healing for all.

And I decided I wanted to be that somebody for other people.

A death doula is a nonmedical and holistic support person who does all of the emotional, practical, and logistical support for the dying person and their circle of support through the process.

I want people to know that their lives matter and that their death ultimately will too.

Given the work I do, I’ve given myself a lot more grace for who I am. It allows me to live more presently.

Prior to finding death work, I’d never stopped to proverbially smell the roses or to figure out what I wanted with my life. Now, I kind of lean into the weirdness and allow myself to be just as I am. That grace will ultimately allow me to reach my death a lot more full—because I’m not holding anything back anymore.

Part of my motivation for doing this work is for Peter. I want his death to have meant something more than just the pain and the grief that it caused.

I’m getting emotional talking about it.

Really, I’d also say that another personal motivation for this work is for me. A reminder that I can live fully—and one day, it will be over.

To live fully means to, you know, to have been myself and to be able to do work that is useful in the world. Still in service.

Makes perfect sense to me that this is where I ended up.