April 2018 Death Cafe
A write up of Death Cafe Iowa - April
Our Death Café was a great one in April!!! We had 4 new people join us for the first time, three of which were students who were participating for extra credit in a Death as a Part of Life class through Iowa State University.
As is often the case when we have new people in our group, part of the conversation revolved around grief and how to approach it in our own lives as well as how to talk to grieving people. We discussed using the concrete word ‘DIED’, especially with children, grief platitudes and telling grievers how to feel, being grief-shamed, and secondary losses. We also talked about Alan Wolfelt’s “Mourner’s Bill of Rights”, and the grief over losing a job.
Some new topics this month: the decision to omit the cause of death from an obituary (and why this might be a financial decision), the connection between suicide and bullying (and how it might NOT be that strong), orbs in pictures, and signs from/dreams of a loved one after death.
A few topics we didn’t have time to discuss in April include friends dying and cryogenics + culture shock – if there is interest, we may pursue these topics in May!