Belleville, IL Death Cafe
A write up of Death Cafe in Belleville, Illinois
By maggieboone
Belleville, Illinois had their first Death Café at the Miscellanea House Café on Saturday, April 25, 2015 from 6 pm CST to 8 pm CST. Thirteen participants attended. The host, Maggie Boone Tribout, started the discussion off with explaining the purpose behind having an open discussion about death in order to dispel some of the fear and dread about it so that people could then free themselves to start going about the business of living and enjoying the life they have. Discussions also included discussing death with children since that was difficult for parents and children encounter death with their pets, grandparents, siblings, friends, and parents, Near death experiences, and cultural elements from India in respect to their stance on death believing that death is part of Karma – in other words "Que Sera Sera” (which means whatever will be, will be).
One of the participants was Diane Cuddleback from Family Hospice who heads the grief groups called Heartlinks. She shared with the group how important it was to be honest with children when it comes to death. At Heartlinks, they speak kid. This means that when it comes to sharing, predicting, honoring and living, we do it all with the knowledge that kids are most comfortable with playing, moving, and creating. Heartlinks programs allow kids to get back to being kids again, and have fun!
We also had a couple who has a Holistic Health Center in O’Fallon, Illinois. Joseph Lahue, administrator, shared his story of NDE (near death experience) and that experience has inspired him to write a book about NDEs. He shared that his experience leads him to believe there is something beyond death and it is beautiful and peaceful. This knowledge helped him move past his fears.
Sharon Egler (owner of Miscellanea House Café), shared the overwhelming amount of death her family has and will experience the past few months. Her young grandson Shawn (age 9) shared the memory of losing his favorite teacher and his other grandmother – both were sudden and compounded the shock of the loss. He shared that the teacher he lost was the one that helped him through is “melt-downs” which we learned was a result of his Autism. We all acknowledged his special memory of her, which we later learned was quite cathartic.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience with plenty of diversity in respect to varying experiences and beliefs about death and discovering the purpose of our lives. We had Catholics, Baptists, a Wiccan, and spiritual persons, which even included a Gnostic believer. We learned that death and life include a spiritual path and it does not matter which path is taken, as long as it is part of living. It was decided to have a Death Café at least once a month (4th Saturday of the month) and five people who weren’t able to attend that had planned to, learned of the success of the Café and has committed to attending the next one scheduled for May 30th from 6pm – 8pm CST.