Death Café

How often do we talk about death and dying? I do a little more than the average person because I work as a Chaplain at the Falmouth Hospital. But I almost never talk to anyone about my own death, or that of anyone close to me. It’s a subject most of us avoid.

In my last posting, I mentioned that my Dad, 92, was in the hospital in Minnesota. It was serious, but not serious enough to fly home. But you still think of the what-ifs, and what if I had missed an opportunity to see my Dad one last time. I don’t relish the idea of my parents dying. I know they will, but I normally try not to think about it. My Dad is doing fine and he kept his sense of humor during his stay in the hospital, but that event and a couple of others at the Falmouth Hospital last week caused me face up to the fact that we all die and we normally know not when. More often we are at the bedside of someone close to us who is dying. Do we know what their wishes are? Does our family know what our wishes are when we die? It is important that we communicate those desires to one another.



These past two weeks and the coming three weeks there is an excellent series at St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth on “Death and Dying.” The series is entitled "Now and at the Hour of Our Death." My talk was “Visiting Hours – When the Church Comes To You.” Other talks were/are "Scrubs - How to Deal with Life in the Hospital," which Judy Lyons, R.N.; gave on March 19; "Shoveling Off - How to Arrange the Funeral," Kevin Morris, on March 26; "Law & Order: Trust Me I Am a Lawyer," Cynthia Aimo, Esq., on April 2; and "Attending to Your Own Funeral - The Rite of Christian Burial Explained,” on April 9.

It’s an excellent series for those of us who don’t think about death and dying very often. Some of the things I talked about were Health Care Proxy (everyone should have one), Living Wills, and organ donation. But mostly I talked about the spiritual aspects of Communion, Anointing of the Sick, Viaticum (Food for the Journey), the importance of communicating your wishes to family members, and discussing the various stages of grief that patients and their families go through. Most of the time, just your presence and a few prayers are all that is needed.

On that same evening there was a gathering of people for a “Death Café” at the First Congregational Church of Falmouth. That is a group of people who get together to talk about death. That doesn't happen very often.  It’s a concept that developed in Europe and has now spread to North America. Small groups of people get together in discussion groups and talk about everything from the practical aspects of planning a funeral to the spiritual aspects of afterlife.

Even with all the preparation and knowledge that death is coming, the moment of death is not easy to see. Even those people who are closest to the dying person may choose to be absent. Don’t judge yourself if you choose not to be present at the moment of death. Sometimes a patient will hang on until all the family is there or a special person has arrived. And sometimes, the patient prefers to die alone. They will wait until everyone is out of the room and pass away. You may notice that a person is holding on and you might tell them, “I am going to leave the room for a while. I love you.”

A dying individual's approach to death has been linked to the amount of meaning and purpose a person has found throughout his lifetime. Those who feel they understand their purpose in life or find special meaning, face less fear and despair in the final weeks of their lives than those who have not.

Deacon Greg Beckel