Summary for 11/14/18 DC-Hillsborough
A write up of Death Cafe Hillsborough
By Neidra
Greetings, Deathlings!
Our November 14th Death Café – Hillsborough (DC-H) was a superb success – Thank you for coming! Fifteen attendees was a really good turnout and represented the most diverse range of ages I have seen at a DC yet, with the youngest ones being 9 and 15! Wonderful! Let’s continue to open up the discussions about death with everyone. Below is a brief summary about our second event, followed by details about the next DC-H on 12/12.
This is a very basic summarization mentioning many (yet not all) of the topics we talked about: as a fun exercise, we wrote down a few of our individual “Bucket List” items which showed creativity and desires to achieve such plans (we also heard some great stories of some Bucket items having already been accomplished); Laurie reminded us about a favorite quote from Ram Dass, “We’re all just walking each other home”; Kim’s 9 year old daughter (omitting name until confirmed okay to share) prompted a fantastic discussion by asking (through her mom), “What happens to us when we die? Do we, and how do we, live on?”; Anne read us a poem, “Give What’s Left of Me Away” (link: http://centralillinoiscelebrant.com/blog/2015/03/give-whats-left-of-me-away-a-jewish-meditation/) and also spoke of the book, “Undertaken with Love: A Home Funeral Guide for Families and Community Care Groups” by Holly Stevens, an outstanding book that facilitated the home funeral of her friend Wayne. Anne adds, “It gave us the details and courage to do everything that needed doing for him up until the time he was buried.”
Overall, I think it was another great Death Café filled with diverse conversations that were thought provoking and educational, as well as stimulating our life-affirming awareness of death. Thank YOU so much for coming, and contributing!