The first Death Cafe in the U.S.

Hello all!
Sadly, I have had many synchronicities that I have forgotten to blog in the past month.  I have been working on getting funding so that I could host the first Death Cafe in the United States.  A Death Cafe is a pop-up event where people get together to talk about death and have tea and yummy cake.  To learn more about my efforts, click on the image above or here.  If nothing else, I do think I made quite an amusing video about my fear of Death by Crocodile.

To learn about the established Death Cafe events in England, visit Deathcafe.com

As you may know, I am actively involved in hospice and palliative care advocacy and what keeps coming up is that people in general, and specifically Americans, are averse to thinking or talking about death.  We see families at end-of-life who have never had the conversations about their wishes.  Not only that, the individuals who are dying themselves have always avoided contemplating their own deaths.  Now, if you're a reader of this blog, I'm guessing you're far ahead of the general public.  Still, I bet you know people who don't ever want to talk about anything more serious than the weather or last night's game.  To clarify though, this event is free from ideology.  The attendees decide what they want to discuss related to death.  We are in no way drawing them to any kind of conclusion.  I'm looking forward to the synchronicities with the people who attend.

I first heard of the Death Cafe when someone blogged about attending one in England.  Jon Underwood runs them there and he has now had hosted many, with increasing success and attendance.  I am so grateful to him for allowing me to use the Death Cafe name and for his openness in general.  He's one of the good guys and we both passionately believe in the need to raise the roof on death awareness.  He was just contacted by someone in Australia who might host one there.  Imagine if this could be worldwide!

Now back to the synchronicities... I promise to get back to posting them.  Everything seems to have fallen in place so well with this Death Cafe program, I can't help but think that I was guided to do this.

Mirror Synchronicity: Fix the Bed

My husband and I were in bed watching Modern Family when he made a comment that we needed to fix the slats under our mattress. 

Not five minutes later, the characters in the episode have the mattress off the bed and are fixing the bed.

Here is a funny clip from the episode related to the mattress.

Directional Synchronicity: The Right Time

The more hospice experiences I have, the more sure I am that there is a significance and a plan to the timing of a patient's death.  I have written about timing before here.  Today I was on my way to sit bedside with a patient who was actively dying.  I will call him "Ed."  I was supposed to start at 8 am but I felt directed to get there a few minutes early.  Sure enough, when I walked back to the room, the whole family was there and they told me that he had just passed.

Ed's daughter, whom I will call "Melissa" apologized that I hadn't been notified in time so that I did not have to come.  I expressed my condolences and asked if she was there when he died.  She said, "Yes, and it was the strangest thing."  She pulled me out into the hallway and asked me if I had remembered the conversation we had two days prior.

Two days ago, she had asked me, "Is it true that when their feet turn blue, that is the sign that the time is near?  That is what the nurse said."  I smiled.  I know that at this time, when a loved one is dying, the words I say will be remembered.  I need to be extra thoughtful in my communication.  I also do not want to ever contradict another staff member.

I said, "Yes, it is true.  However..." and then I began to explain to her the spiritual side of things.  That the more that I have worked in hospice, the more I know that the timing is much more mysterious.  Sometimes the feet don't change.  Sometimes they do and the person doesn't die.  What I told her is that there is a plan, and it's something that we don't get to know until later.  I told her, "If you are meant to be there, you will be... but sometimes, no matter how much you love them, they would rather spare you of the moment."  I told her that it can be nearly impossible to predict which way the patient will want it, but after the fact, it will always seem clear that how it happened was the way it was supposed to happen.

Her eyes got big and she told me that her father in law had passed just minutes after they had left the room.  Her own experience confirmed for her what I was saying.  She thanked me for the conversation and went to work.

Fast forward to today.  This is what Melissa told me in the hallway.  Melissa had been thinking about what I had told her.  She decided to have a conversation with her dad, "Ed."  She told him lovingly, "Dad, you and I both know that I am the only one in the family who can handle being here when you go.  Everyone has said their goodbyes... I will look after them.  You need to go while it's on my shift."

Within just a couple of minutes, his breathing changed.  The nurse acknowledged that it would be soon.  Melissa called her family.  Knowing that they were on their way, he knew it was time.  Ed died within five minutes of his daughter telling him it was time to go.  She said he took three breaths and it was a peaceful transition.

So then after Melissa had told me the story, we both found significance in the fact that I had not been notified.   It was important to her to tell me the story, and it was helpful for me to hear it.

Mirror Synchronicity: Frozen in Carbonite

This is one of those really odd synchronicities that made me scratch my head and wonder why.  A few days ago, I came across an article about med students who put together a fun little video about advanced directives.  They referenced Star Wars, which is not uncommon, but they titled the article:  How Not to Get Frozen in Carbonite Against Your Wishes and included this picture:

Then yesterday I was watching the television show Awake, and one of the cases was a man who had been killed and disposed of in concrete.  Not only did the image seem reminiscent of the Star Wars scene, one of the characters actually referenced Han Solo being frozen in carbonite.  Here is a pic from my television screen:

For those new to my blog posts, I do need to reiterate, that I don't necessarily ascribe a deeper meaning to every synchronicity, but I do attempt to document all that stand out to me.  This one, like I said, was rather random! 

Mirror Synchronicity: Tickets to the Match!

In 2010 when I was at the ADEC conference in Kansas City, my husband called to tell me that his brother in law Ryan had offered him last minute tickets to the Master's tournament that week and that he would not be able to pick me up from the airport.

In 2012 the day before I was to leave for the ADEC conference in Atlanta, Georgia, we received an e-mail from a cousin named Ryan who had last minute tickets to the semi-finals of the Final Four basketball game in New Orleans.  Once again, I would have to find another ride home from the airport.

Both sets of tickets were offered at the last minute by someone named Ryan, and both events were at the same time I was at the ADEC conference.  And in both situations, I had to find an alternative ride home from the airport!