I Saw the Sign
A write up of Death Cafe Des Moines
The Young Bereavement Professionals Group hosted another meaningful Death Café this week! It was great to see familiar faces, and welcome back some folks we hadn’t seen in a few months! Our participants are so great about inviting friends, co-workers, and civic/social club members, so we expect to see new faces over the next few months!
We started the evening with a discussion about Huggable Pet Urns, which was mentioned at the tail end of our evening last month. Someone had brought in a print out of some examples, which made for some great comments! Most of the people thought it was a very weird idea, even disgusting. One person exclaimed, “You wouldn’t put ashes in a stuffed Grandma and cuddle with her!”, which made us all laugh! A few people thought it was a great idea, especially for children or for people who were closer to their pets than to people in their lives. That led to a (very brief) chat about “appropriate” ways to memorialize Loved Ones, such as turning ashes into jewelry or diamonds. We all agreed that some people would find these ideas just as weird as the Huggable Pet Urns, and that “appropriate” is a very subjective term.
One member had watched a documentary about cremation, and in the film, the crematorium was not cleaned in between cremations. We speculated if this is a common practice, or just a bad example. None of us want to believe that our Loved Ones ashes are mixed with someone else, or that we aren’t receiving every piece of a Loved One back after they die. None of us had any answers, but I suspect someone will do their research and have an answer next month!
We had a really great sharing time about “signs” our Loved Ones give us after they die (both positive and negative/neutral signs). It was so wonderful to hear these personal stories from everyone who chose to share. Some of the signs were poignant, others were funny, some could be explained by natural phenomenon, and others were beyond explanation. We did talk about the fact that just because something is “natural” doesn’t mean it can’t also be “supernatural.” For example, butterflies are a common sign of a Loved One visiting, but the fact that they are “normal” doesn’t distract from their importance. It was very special to hear all of the stories that people shared about the relationships with their Loved Ones and the signs that matched those relationships.
We had a very interesting discussion about how the death penalty is implemented, how humane the means are, and what happens if someone lives through an execution. This conversation was brought out by one person who had watched a documentary that showed a corrections officer has to stay with a person who has been executed until they are fully embalmed, to confirm that they are, in face, dead. Another member mentioned that several years ago, a man in Oklahoma had lived through his execution by medication, but later died of a heart attack due to the drugs. It was an interesting discussion on the legality/morality of states obtaining medications overseas to preform executions, because US drug companies no longer want their products to be associated with ending life.
We had brief conversations on the use of professionals wailers in other cultures to show respect for the dead, and how out-of-place it would be here at an Iowa funeral. We also talked about how smell is linked to memory, and how comforting smells can be when thinking of our Loved Ones.
December gave us another delightful Death Café. The tone was more conversational this month, probably because we have created a comfort level within our “regulars” group. At our past three Death Cafes, we had to compete for time to share our ideas or ask questions, not knowing when or if we would see each other again. Now that we have a regular monthly meeting, we can take our time diving into topics, knowing that we can always circle back next month. About 30 minutes before closing, we go around and ask each person if they have a topic/question that didn’t get covered that night, and we put it on a list for the next meeting. This helps to validate that we are all in this together, and that everyone’s voices deserve to be heard. Sometimes we refer to last month’s list, and other times we have only new things to chat about, it just depends on the group’s wishes that night.
We had another participant bring a delicious dessert this month: rum cake! It is so great to see the relationships within the group build, even though we have different backgrounds, ideas, and levels of comfort for each topic. We all really take care of each other, and each person is so respectful. There are several people within the group that I wouldn’t have met, or known on such an interesting level, if it hadn’t been for Death Café. I feel very blessed to host this wonderful event each month with the Young Bereavement Professionals Group!