Rayne Phoenix said the horrific death of her brother, Hollywood icon River Phoenix, left her with a very vivid relationship with death, and she is even studying to become a “death doula.”
On the anniversary of his death, Lane published an essay explaining how, after the “My Own Private Idaho” star overdosed in 1993 at the age of 23, he coped with the tragedy by “shutting it out.”
But she says that approach made her feel like she was “somehow pushing him away from me.”
“After 32 years and many losses, an ever-deepening curiosity about death, grief, and how society deals with it is alive for me,” she wrote in an article about Another Jane Pratt Sing.
The actress and musician said she recently started learning about the death positivity movement, which “encourages people to talk openly about death, dying, and the dead,” and believes thinking more deeply about death may lead to greater happiness in life.
Lane, who is also the sister of Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix, added that in the early days of the pandemic, when the fear of death was in the air, “anxiety led me to become a death doula and take an online course on how to write a million songs.”
(According to the International End-of-Life Doula Association, it is someone who “guides a person who is transitioning to death and their loved ones through the dying process.”)
In her essay, she also shared an unseen photo of herself and River, believed to have been taken by famed film director Gus Van Sant.
