First Death Cafe, Westport, a Delightful Evening!
A write up of Westport Death Cafe
By Val Lovelace
We had a wonderful gathering of folks from Westport and surrounding communities, most of whom were new to Death Cafe discussions. One woman celebrated her 73rd birthday by attending with us, saying her family found it a bit surprising that she would want to join a discussion about death.
The conversations moved freely between experiences people had with their dying loved ones to talking about cemation, funerals, and whether it was up to the dead to have a ceremony or not (some felt like they did not want a memorial service or gathering while others felt that memorials are for the living and not the dead). One learned new things about her sister by listening to the stories her co-workers told of her and felt she would have missed those cherished memories had there not been a service.
We shared some good laughs over potential epitaphs and things people had read on stones or seen in cemeteries. Then conversation moved to more serious matters as one woman wondered "what happened" when she died. She meant specifically, who "got things rolling." Some folks tried to share about or inquire into whether she had a will, a power of attorney, and so forth, but she said all that was taken care of already and she had already spoken to her children about it all...she just wanted to know what kicked the whole thing off after she died.
We finally got round to understanding that she was wondering what really happened...like a blow by blow account...and another shared how it went with EMTs being called, police arriving with an unattended death, how the coroner gets called in that case, and so forth.
Someone else shared how she had been working out some details on a site called "It's a Wonderful Life" and she enjoyed how that helped her have conversations with her husband about specific wishes--she had known him for over 50 years and was not aware of his favorite funerary song or artist - but, she smiled, she is now.
We enjoyed tea, coffee, and fresh muffins as we chatted and inquired. One man posed an excellent question: What place do we have, if any, in attempting to govern what happens after we die (such as whether a service is wanted, what songs are played, who are the pall bearers, and so forth).
Before long our time had come to a close. The group offered feedback about their experience with Westport's fist Death Cafe. We look forward to meeting again next month and will continue to have a monthly comunity discussion on the third thursday of each month. Hope to see you on October 23, 2014!
Comments
Excellent recap. Sorry to miss it, but hope to see you next month.
Posted by Shawn Lewin