Off the Beaten Path: A Conversation About Death

Off the Beaten Path: A Conversation About Death

Well, here is something not related to housing and off the beaten path, but its about an aspect of life that I thought might be interesting for fellow RSCs as a topic we don't talk a lot about.

There are many things we enjoy talking and arguing about in American society; sports, politics, entertainment, the economy, and more. Indeed one of the hallmarks of Democracy and a healthy society is open discussion and sharing of view points with each other, even on topics which are hard to discuss. One of those topics which is often hard to discuss, to the point of essentially ignoring it, is something that touches every single person and is an inevitability in life. That is the topic of death.

I’ve been an RSC for six years now and continue to learn new things I had little if any awareness of the previous day. A couple years into my journey with RSC work I was fortunate enough to be at a training where our speaker was a nurse who had started a business as a ‘death dula’ a person who assists others in the process of dying. While my initial reaction to her talk was to be a bit squeamish, that rapidly faded as the importance of what she was saying pulled me up and into a place of awe. Of the many things I learned that day about death, one of the most interesting and I thought potentially applicable to me as a person and RSC, was awareness of the international movement known as Death Café.

What is a Death Café? Simply put, it is a group of people who gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. The objective is 'to increase awareness of death with a view to helping one another make the most of our (finite) lives'. A Death Cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group, not a grief support or counselling session. Having held a Death Cafe in one of my senior properties, I was fairly surprised how quickly some of the residents signed up to hold a Cafe. I was very much in awe of the participants candor, and grasp of the topic and process to the eventual hosting of one on their own without me. Well I said this would be off the beaten path, but a path we all walk, though don't often talk about.

References
Balducci, L. (April 2012) Death and dying: what the patient wants , Annals of Oncology, Volume 23, Issue suppl 3, Pages 56–61.
Crettaz, B. (2010) "Cafés Mortels: Sortir la Mort du Silence". Geneva: Labor et fides.
Death Café website [Retrieved on-line 09/23/19] https://deathcafe.com/
Lloyd, J. (April 7, 2013) "'Death cafes' normalize a difficult, not morbid, topic", USA Today. [Retrieved on-line 09/23/19] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/07/health-spirituality-dying-death/2046805/