September Death Club Digest

Contents

• September Recap

• Next Month: What to expect

• Common threads to pull as a group

• Reflection Questions

• Choose Your Own Adventure: Optional threads to follow if you’re inspired

September Recap

End-of-Life(EOL) web of services, bureaucracies, professionals and practitioners we may encounter before we take our last breath. And what a web we wove! We also started to touch on the separation of EOL Care vs After Death Care, the confusion that can emerge in the terms, as well as expectations and regulations evolving related to the holistic death care movement. We’ll continue pulling this thread as we move forward.

Planning ahead: the paperwork and choices, plus what gets in the way. Here are a couple EOL planning guides that came up: End Notes from Peaceful Presence Project in Oregon. CAKE’s online version, which is also free. BJ Miller is on CAKE‘S medical advisory board.

?? One question that emerged for us was: Would an Advance Directive from a different state be honored, while acknowledging that they are not always legally binding even within the state of residence depending on family dynamics and other conditions ?? We’ll see if we can answer that by next month.

We discussed our hopes, fears, and questions regarding our own death or the death of loved ones. We also discussed what we would regret leaving undone if we died tomorrow.

October Theme

Facing our Mortality & Tough Converstions

October 14, 1pm - 8:30pm Potluck @ 6pm Overnight camping and accommodations available, but check in first.

Private screening of the documentary Prognosis: Notes on Living. Thanks to Citizen Film Company for providing a private link for our meeting this Autumn. This is a film I encountered during my INELDA Death Doula training last year.

Discuss documentary. We’ll weave the material we’ve covered so far into that discussion.

Thematically appropriate pie from our September gathering made by the talented C.K.

Everyone

Common Threads…3-6 hours

We have many choices to make and potential conversations to have at the end of life. This month we explore ways people navigate personal, medical and cultural conversations around their choices and how we might come to better understand them.

Please read or listen to Beginners Guide:

• Chapter 6-9

Please read or listen to Advice for Future Corpses(available on audio through most libraries):

• Chapter 4

Some of us may have the choice to engage in Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD). Please choose to listen to one of the following:

• OPB Interview with The Inevitable Author Katie Engelhart.

OR (AND?)

• Recording of Anita Hannig reading an excerpt from her book The Day I Die , followed by a conversation between Anita and Lisa Vigil Schattinger from Ohio End of Life Choices.

Familiarize yourself with the MAiD Pros and Cons arguments here.

Look over the EOL websites from your state and come familiar with Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking(VSED). Good starting points in each state:

• End of Life Choices

• Compassion and Choices

Reflection Questions

1. Revisit page 111-12 in BGTE. Which option would you choose for yourself at this time? Why?

2. Revisit page 123-126 in BGTE. How would you describe your relationship with your doctor(s) and how did the suggestions made on these pages align with your experiences?

3. Consider the current ways you cope with disagreements, discomfort, stress and grief. What coping mechanisms do you think will continue to serve you when you face a future loss of someone you love and which do you think could be helpful to shed or replace?

4. Shifting roles from spouse or partner to patient or caregiver is hard. When considering both roles, where do you think you’ll likely struggle or feel challenged?

5. Shoshana Berger recommends practicing healthy coping skills on small losses…like losing keys, failed meals, or other routine things we face on a weekly basis…as a way to exercise our loss resilience. Just dropping that here to see if anyone wants to give that a try. Feel free to share how it goes.

6. What are your thoughts and feelings about MAiD and were there arguments for or against that stuck out to you?

Choose Your Own Adventure

Extra Optional Threads

Legal stuff…

How Washington expanded its MAiD accessibility this year.

Listening…

They’re Severely Mentally Ill. Is it ethical to help them die? An interesting exploration of MAiD from a European perspective. Canada is exploring expanding MAiD to those suffering with Mental Health and it is a hot topic. Although this psychiatrist is from the Netherlands, there are perspectives on the ethical challenges of that expansion to the US and North America in general.

Watching…

I still recommend watching Lulu Wang’s The Farewell from last month if you haven’t already. It relates to our topic this month.

Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Pinocchio. Relationship with death and mortality is at the heart of this movie and it’s a great season to watch it if you have access to Netflix.

Wishing you all the color and light you need to harbor inside, as we watch the light slip from our days into the darker seasons ahead. Happy Autumn!