Fun at a Death Café? Sure!

On July 15, Dan Bulf and I held our second Chicago-area Death Café. We’d hoped for 20 people, but we were stunned when our lovely room at Curt’s Café in Evanston was filled to overflowing with 40. The poor air conditioning couldn’t keep up. Thank God for iced tea!

There were many there whose work involves confronting death: hospital chaplains, social workers, grief counselors, hospice volunteers. There were men and women of various ethnic groups and a wide age range: 20’s to a self-professed 87 years old. But that didn’t mean they had talked about their own, personal feelings about death.

We broke into four groups for wide-ranging conversations about our attitudes towards death and dying, particularly our own death. I was not surprised to hear quite a few identify the death of someone close to them as a catalyst. Sometimes that inspired them to devote their career to helping others have a good death. Sometimes it caused them to take a hard look at their own lives, including their legacy. There were those who talked about death and dying issues all day, but had a hard time when asked how they felt about their own.

That’s what a Death Café is all about: providing a safe, open, respectful environment for talking about death and dying. You’re with a group of (probable) strangers talking about a subject that’s often impossible to bring up with family and friends. It’s a time to share your feelings and learn that you are not alone in struggling with how to live a life that makes a difference. Because, let’s face it: part of having a good death is realizing that your life mattered.

The evaluations were terrific. When asked to give three words to describe their experience, the top responses were: interesting, comfortable, open, enlightening (yes, I know, that’s four – there was a tie). Typical comments included:

“It reinforced how important open discussions are.”

“I am more at ease talking about my own death.”

“Moving to hear others’ perspectives on death.”

And yes, there was laughter, especially when we talked about what makes up a fun funeral (a good topic for a future blog post). Many there – and since – have asked when we’re doing another one.

We are planning our next Death Café for Monday August 19, also in Evanston. Details will go up on the “Events” page here as soon as they’re finalized. If you already know you can’t attend or want to be on our email list for future Chicago-area Death Cafes, click here.

To those who joined us, thank you. You endured a steamy evening to discuss a difficult subject with courage and grace.

If you want to learn more about the Death Café movement, including how to hold one of your own, check out Jon Underwood’s Death Café website.

Stepping Back from Friend Grieving

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I’ve written about this before, but I thought this was a good time to revisit the topic of self-care when writing about grief – or any difficult subject. And I believe the same principles apply to those working in hospice, therapists and grief counselors.

The fifth book in my series about grieving the death of a friend will be about 9/11. I always knew it would be included, but I deliberately positioned it late in the series. My blog posts about that day have been difficult to write. It’s overwhelming at times to even think about it. So I gather research, read books, and fill up a shelf in my bookcase. And I walk away. Eventually, I’ll have to take a deep breath and dive in. But it will be a slow process.

In comparison, the second book, now at the editor, is about losing friends to AIDS. I was somewhat surprised at how much anger was involved – not just from me, but from the people I interviewed and wrote about. I thought I’d put more distance between me and that subject, but I hadn’t, and neither had they. Maybe the anger fueled me, not for the first time. But this book took a relatively short amount of time to write.

I feel more detached from books three and four, and frankly, that’s a relief. So is my latest venture, writing book reviews on BroadwayWorld.com. I don’t review books that are in any way grief-related. I decide what kinds of books to review. I have control.

And maybe that’s the bottom line: control. We often feel like grief controls us, that we are being swept away. The feelings we experience are so raw, so powerful, we are helpless to fight them. And many times that’s right. We’re not in control: of our emotions, of our reactions, of what happened to us.

When our lives – whether it’s writing about grief, working with people who are dying or grieving, or grieving ourselves – overwhelm us, we have to find the strength to step back. Having someone say “you need to get past this, get over it” is not the same as hearing them say “let’s go out for lunch” or “I’ll watch the kids so you can take a nap”. And unfortunately, the former is what we hear most often.

So, if you are grieving or live/work in a situation where others are grieving, do whatever you have to do to take care of yourself. Even if it’s 15 minutes a day, do it. Turn off your phone, go for a walk, take a power nap, cry, crank up the radio: do something that takes you away from grief and gives you a tiny bit of control over your life.

Before you know it, those 15 minutes won’t feel self-indulgent: they’ll feel absolutely necessary. They may turn into 30 minutes or even an hour. You aren’t disrespecting the friend who died –or your work – if you do this. You are refueling your body and your mind for the tasks ahead.

Don’t wait for someone else to make you do it. Do it for yourself, today.

 

Writing About Depressing Stuff

I’ve written before about how writing about grief can affect you, but I think it’s worth revisiting, in a little broader sense.

There are people who cringe when I tell them what most of my writing is about. I understand their feeling that grief is “depressing”. But there are many whose work could be classified that way:

            Hospice volunteers

            AIDS outreach workers

            Oncologists

            First responders

I had a friend whose job was to fire people in her company (I hate “lay off” – let’s call it what it is). I thought she had an incredibly depressing job, but she didn’t think so. She was so considerate about how she handled each person that they often wound up sympathizing with her.

I’ve also met writers whose memoirs deal with horrific tales of neglect, addiction, abuse and suicide. Yet not one of them seemed unhappy.

What do these people have in common? I think aside from their professions, or book topics, it’s attitude.

They’ve found a way to define themselves as helpers. They use their experience to inform and empower others. They don’t feel sorry for themselves or complain about how hard they have it. They focus on serving people, often on the worst day of their lives.

So, when you watch a tragedy unfold on TV, think of them: the reporters struggling for words, the first responders taking a break and realizing what they just witnessed, the Red Cross volunteers comforting victims.

Their job is a whole lot more depressing than mine, and probably yours, too. But you won’t hear them complain.

Because they’re the ones asking “How can I help you?”

Dying Matters - For Friends, Too

I’m in my best friend’s will.

She told me long ago what she was leaving me. It has no value to anyone in her family; in fact, she’d prefer they didn’t open the box at all. It’s a personal keepsake of our past, mostly high school.

I think it was when I was in St. Louis for her father’s funeral that I told her there was huge flaw in this plan. “You’re assuming you go first,” I told her. After a moment, she agreed that was problematic. (Plus, I really, really, really would like to have that box now.)

This week is Dying Matters week in the UK, a time for people to at least begin the difficult conversations we must have but try to avoid.

When we attend funerals we often reflect on, for example, the choice of music and say “I want that at my funeral” or “that reminds me of what I want at my funeral.” (I think my will specifies “Spirit in the Sky” and “I Happen to Like New York”, but I’ll have to double-check that.)

But if you’re like most people, you haven’t given those kinds of plans any thought. You haven’t even told anyone what kinds of treatment you want if your death is near. A recent study showed that 59% of people in the UK don’t want to die in the hospital. What the study didn’t reveal is how many of them have actually told anyone of those wishes. It’s important for many reasons, including the possibility that you will not be able to communicate those wishes when the times comes.

Don’t just discuss this with your family: include your friends. Ask them if they’ve made any plans, have any opinions on what they want or don’t want.

Need guidance? Check out http://www.dyingmatters.org/ for materials on how to have those conversations: with yourself and others.

Watch The Big Chill and check the playlist on your iPod; you may get some ideas there.