Summary of Death Cafe in Belleville, IL 6272015
A write up of Belleville, IL Death Cafe
By maggieboone
Death Café 6/27/2015 6pm – 8pm CST
The 3rd Death Café hosted by Sharon Egler at the Miscellanea House Café was held on June 27th. There were a few more attendees that are new. A Southern Illinois Hospice representative and an actual medium attended along with the regular attendees which made for an interesting discussion centered around closure after the death of a loved one and moved to new ways of memorializing their lives.
Sharon had done some research and found some methods of memorializing such as stained glass pieces bonded with cremains, Human DNA trees (Biopresence apparently claim to transcode human DNA into trees creating a living memorial), a portrait with ashes incorporated into acrylic paint, an hourglass (this was one of my personal favorites because I thought it was a great reminder that it is TIME to celebrate life because the sand will run out), becoming part of the ocean attaching to the coral reefs, tattoos with the ashes incorporated into the ink of the tattoo, a company called Huggable Ums that stores cremains inside a plush and cuddly body of a stuffed animal, a diamond ring, A vinyl record (yes, a company called “And Vinyly” claims to be able to presses ashes into a vinyl 33 rpm recorded message from the recently departed loved one), and for those of you wanting to go out with a bang, your cremains can be incorporated into fireworks.
There was also discussion on becoming a death midwife or doula. Sharon and Jim were going to research more on what it entails to explore doula programs that train support professionals to meet the unique needs at every stage on the journey through life. There was interest from about five or six attendees that would consider training for such a support position (volunteer of course) and also how this could be an added benefit in hospice programs.
The next meeting of the Belleville, IL meeting will be on Saturday, July 18th, from 6pm – 8pm and hosted by Maggie Boone Tribout. Since the June 27th meeting, confirmation to build 3 “Before I Die…” walls (public bucket lists) was received. Diana Cuddleback with Family Hospice is up for the challenge of building one of the walls at their west end of Belleville location, permission to build a 2nd wall on the side of the Miscellanea House Café is pending, and Maggie has approached her department chair of the psychology program at Southwestern Illinois College for permission to build the 3rd wall as a project for her Death & Dying class somewhere in the “commons” area of the college. Hopefully by the July 18th meeting, all permissions will be green-lighted and discussion on how to fund these walls will be explored. We are so proud and grateful of how well received the Death Café is in Belleville, increasing the attendees at each monthly meeting.