DC Zarautz october 2018
A write up of Death Cafe Zarautz 7th edition
Our date was at the usual place and time. In this seventh edition, a group of people (13) from Zarautz and other surrounding villages got together around some coffee and tea cups and a cake. This time, male presence was more numerous (6) than usually. Is something changing?
After introducing ourselves and sharing expectations, the first person who began speaking made this sentence: “I laugh of death, I’m not afraid of her”. Another one says to be angry with death, because of having brought her mother when she was a child. There are people who recognize their fear in front of death, each of them from a different perspective.
Fear about how to die, pain, loneliness, being a burden. And then we get into the discussion about euthanasia, assisted suicide, the right for dignity in life, death as a liberation. And one question, “Committing suicide, does it show bravery or cowardliness?”
Living with suffering and without expectations makes no sense. And solitude, we talk about those who die on their own, people who die at home and nobody notices until long after, without no one caring about them , and we ask to ourselves what kind of society are we building. And what about patients with ALS? What do they think about their lives? How can they assume it? Do they have the right to decide about their ending? Again euthanasia, assisted suicide, the role of health professionals, laws and so on. We agree that these matters should be discussed being very realistic.
As conversation goes on, we get inevitably to the religious / spiritual dimension of death, believing or not believing, accepting or refusing God, the education we received. Some of us are believers, and other ones are not. There is this orphan feeling about the lack of ceremonies which help to interact with dead persons. Flowers might help to create this link with them. Someone jokes about having a funeral according to the Viking rituals.
Closing this meeting, commentaries reinforce the need for having come:
- “It’s been pleasant”, “curiosity satisfied”, “opening doors”.
- “There has been communication, everybody has talked”.
- “Very positive”.
- “These topics are interesting, there are always new points of view”.
- “We have to take it out, do not hide”.
- “A very respectful space and safe for talking”.
- “Death covers a lot of field, it’s poliedric”.
- “I go satisfied”.
In the last part, one of the hosts read some beautiful paragraphs from a text written by a terminal patient with ALS (thanks to a special technique activated with the eyes). This is the final sentences: “I’ve had a wonderful life, and the best part is that I’ve known it”.
And we leave, convinced of having had ourselves a wonderful experience.
Eskerrik asko.
(Written by Anjel Irastorza; Translated by Iñaki Peña).