Another stellar event!
A write up of Death Cafe Des Moines
Our April Death Café was another stellar event! The 11 of us started out the evening discussing practical tips if someone you care about has had a loved one die, from bringing supplies to their home to packing mints, tissues, and water bottles for the visitation and service. One tip I have never heard before is to spray perfume in your hair, because you will be hugging lots of people all day.
We also talked about the well-intentioned but hurtful things that people say when someone dies, and discussed alternatives. This was an especially poignant conversation as we talked about those in our lives who died young (early 40s or before), and the impact of those words on the grieving family and coworkers.
We spent a little time discussing advance directives, in light of National Healthcare Decisions Day (April 16). I shared my “in case of death” folder, which includes readings/poetry for my funeral and family, specific instructions for family members, pictures to use in my slideshow, lists of people to contact upon my death, etc. This led to an interesting discussion about planning funerals for someone who died, and who the funeral is really for – is it more important to be somber and reverent, or is it better to “throw a party” that the deceased would have enjoyed?
One really interesting discussion was on how Facebook affects grief in teens. On the one hand, they have a place to always “speak to” their deceased loved one, but on the other hand, it can be really hurtful to always have that reminder.
One member of our group mentioned a Victorian Funeral reenactment that is held at the local Living History Farms, which we are all very interested in attending in the Fall! We have decided to go as a group to this event, which will be a lot of fun!
As always, we ran out of time before we ran out of topics! We hope to explore these topics next month: right to die (death with dignity), renting burial plots (is this in our future?), different culture’s mourning & funeral customs, end-of-life directives, and burial vs. cremation. About burial plots, one member mentioned a book on Venice, Italy, “The City of Falling Angels”.