January 9, 2013
The Death Café events never cease to
amaze me in the variety of attendees, which leads to unique conversations each
time. This Death Café had some repeat
attendees and some new ones. Mix in an
attendee with a Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology and an attendee who is a
funeral home director and you’re going to have an interesting dialogue.
Words that were used to describe
this event include: open, participating,
enlightening, refreshing and therapeutic.
Just recently, TLC aired the first
episode of the Best
Funeral Ever. This show has caused
quite a stir in the media where journalists have used the phrases, “that’s
disgusting” and “trivializes death.”
Death is supposed to be private, they say. Attendees at the Death Café do not
necessarily agree with that sentiment.
Those of us in attendance realize that we are a minority. We acknowledge our mortality and the mortality
of those around us. As a facilitator, I
usually try not to direct the conversation, but I could not help but ask about
the professional mourners that I had seen on the show. Professional mourners were individuals who
were hired to attend the services and display outward signs of emotion.
“Are those people for real?”
“Yes,” the funeral home director
told me.
“Could I be one?”
“You might not fit in,” he
said. He went on to explain that the
professional mourners actually do serve a purpose to allow others to grieve
openly. He told me with the African
American culture, there is a strong desire to keep emotions in check. This rings true to me because in my hospice
work I have heard repeatedly, “I have to be strong for the others.”
At this Death Café we talked about
how we are a pain avoiding society.
People avoid funerals because they are afraid to experience pain. They don’t realize that the funerals are
healing experiences. Even planning the
funeral can be a healing process because it allows families to really think
about how they want to honor their loved one.
We talked about how the television
show calls the funerals “Celebration of life.” Then someone brought up that not
every death is a celebration of life.
Especially not if it was a tragic accident. Or murder.
Or a mass shooting of school children.
The room got quiet when someone
brought up Sandyhook. We sat still with
the pain.
Someone pondered if these mass
shooting events made people think more about death. We concluded that one cannot help but think
about it in the moment but people try to forget about death as soon as they
can. The mass shootings seem to make us
more avoidant. It is so painful that we want
to run away, change the channel. Avoid,
avoid, avoid.
This led us to discuss how we talk
about death with our children and how we, as children, were first exposed to
death.
The conversation was not entirely
serious though. We talked about the
cathartic experience of going through a loved one’s possessions. That it is good to get your affairs in order
to a point, but the process of sorting through belongings sometimes forces
families to come together and grieve together.
Surprisingly, that even sorting through “stuff” can help heal.
We talked about so much more than
what could be summarized here, but you’ll just have to come to a Death Café for
yourself to see what it is like. The
next Columbus Death Café is February 6th. No RSVP required. The event will be from 7-9 p.m. at the
Westerville Panera 782 N. State Street.
Please contact Lizzymiles@gmail.com
with questions.
We now have a Facebook page to
advertise our events. Please “like” us
at:
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