July's Death Cafe
A write up of Death Cafe Iowa
July’s Death Café was the 7th for Death Café Iowa of the year. For this meeting we met at Hamilton’s on Westown Parkway in West Des Moines, Iowa. Carrie Bauer and Buffy Peters (members of the Young Bereavement Professionals Group) facilitated the group. We had 7 people (all women) in attendance ranging in ages and professions. Introductions seemed to focus on events that has happened in our lives since the last Death Café. We talked quite a bit about Jon Underwood’s death, funeral and the legacy he left behind. Other topics initially discussed were a member’s trip to China and the quality of life she witnessed there and a funeral of a 1st love and the surprising emotions that brought up. This group has a great sense of humor in regards to death topics so we laughed a lot at this group like so many others! One topic that was particularly humorous was the use of hashtags in regards to death, like #shegone. One member joked they’d like that to be their obituary. A couple other topics that sprung from our initial topics were judgments that our society puts on the grieving and people who we knew who died and their appearance at their funeral. It was a wonderful night of conversation and we’re looking forward to the next one in August!