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Death positive meet-ups provide safe spaces for taboo topics

The STL Death Cafe convenes at City Foundry on October 12, 2022.
Miya Norfleet
The STL Death Cafe convenes at City Foundry on October 12, 2022.

The closer we get to Halloween, the more we’re collectively reminded of our mortality. While Societal norms have conditioned us to fear death and avoid grief, local groups like STL Death Cafe encourage people to lean into such topics.

“[Many] people show up after they've experienced what we would call a ‘bad death experience’ — something didn't go quite as we would hope,” said Tracy Gomillion, who founded STL Death Cafe seven years ago. “And they want to ensure that their loved ones have a more positive, well planned and executed death for themselves.”

At these meetups, strangers come together to talk openly about death, dying and grief.

Many of the members have tried to talk about their own death planning with their own loved ones, Gomillion said, “And people don't want to have those conversations.”

The host of STL Death Cafe, Tracy Gomillion, and grief educator Eileen Wolfington are on a mission to destigmatize the taboo of talking about death, dying and grief.
Emily Woodbury
The host of STL Death Cafe, Tracy Gomillion, and grief educator Eileen Wolfington are on a mission to destigmatize the taboo of talking about death, dying and grief.

“So we try to help each other and affirm each other that those are still very important conversations to have, and to continue trying to have them,” she said, “because death is part of the life process just as much as birth is.”

Gomillion is working with folks like grief educator Eileen Wolfington to introduce more people in the St. Louis region to the death positive movement.

“For me, it's accepting the reality of our mortality — and not waiting until a critical event occurs, a diagnosis or hearing from the doctors, as I heard when my father passed away, ‘He has perhaps six months to a year to live,’” Wolfington said. “And, yes, I grieved, but I was much better prepared than when I lost my mother 20 years ago due to an unexpected death.”

Wolfington carries that acceptance of death with her into Día de Muertos celebrations every year. This year’s holiday, also known as the Day of the Dead, will begin on November 1.

“We believe that our ancestors come back to visit us, and I don't mean that literally — that you're going to see a ghost or a living spirit — but it's the essence of who they were and the life they lived,” she said. “It's a day of remembrance, and it's a day of celebration. So that those emotions that we had when we lost our loved one, hopefully, continue in our hearts.”

Death cafes, Día de los Muertos, and the death positive movement

Gomillion and Wolfington will participate in St. Louis’ first End of Life Festival this weekend at Bellefontaine Cemetery. Gomillion will facilitate Death Cafe conversations on Saturday and Sunday, and Wolfington will give presentations on Día de Muertos and practice tools for making sense of life and death.

Wolfington shared one such tool on Friday’s St. Louis on the Air: find a way to practice honoring loved ones who have passed.

“Send them love, light a candle, prepare some type of ritual, or find someone that can work with you so that you can feel that you're there. It's the essence of the love that you had for them, because grief will transform into love,” she said. “I hurt immensely when [my] dad died, thinking I would never laugh again. But now I laugh every day, and I even became a laughter yoga leader to honor my dad.”

Related Events
What: Last Call: An End of Life Festival
When: 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on October 15 and 16
Where: Bellefontaine Cemetery (4947 W Florissant Ave, St. Louis, MO 63115)

What: STL Death Cafe
When: Gatherings at 6 p.m. the second Wednesday of every month
Where: City Foundry (3730 Foundry Way, St. Louis, MO 63110)

St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski and Alex Heuer. Avery Rogers is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.

Audio Transcript

“St. Louis on the Air” on St. Louis Public Radio, October 14, 2022 
Transcript of interview with Tracy Gomillion, Eileen Wolfington; STL Death Cafe
© 2022, St. Louis Public Radio
Web story: https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2022-10-14/death-positive-meet-ups-provide-safe-spaces-for-taboo-topics

Danny Wicentowski 

Here's a reassuring thought: death happens to all of us. Okay, I know that probably doesn't feel reassuring, but to a growing number of people that acknowledgement, that conversation, which so often feels uncomfortable or morbid, it's something to embrace and to seek out. That's the idea behind a death cafe, a space for people to gather to talk about death to let go of stigma, and to help each other navigate unseen roadblocks and the hard feelings that come with dealing with the end of life. Beyond just the concept of death cafes, this approach is part of what's become known as the death positivity movement. And on Wednesday night, St. Louis on the Air producers Emily Woodbury and Miya Norfleet attended this month's STL Death Cafe meeting held at the City Foundry. One attendee, Terri Powell of Dorsey, Illinois in Madison County, has come to the Death Cafe for the last five years. She told our producers that she began attending after her husband's death. The process had left her with questions, and she wanted to find answers that would help her when her time came.

Terri Powell

I had already been very pragmatic about death. I had previously been more spiritual, spiritual, religious, and then some things that happened at my work, and it changed me or awakened me, to how, for me, these bodies might as well be house plants that have brains. At some point they're going to die. At some point, there's nothing more we can do. And so I started looking at death as way more pragmatic. This is how it happens. This is how the body reacts to diseases or trauma. And so, at that point, I began being much more forward with my family.

Danny Wicentowski 

That was Terri Powell speaking at a recent Death Cafe meeting. And joining us now to talk about, well, how to talk about death, is Tracy Gomillion, founder of the STL Death Cafe. Tracy, welcome.

Tracy Gomillion

Thank you so much.

Danny Wicentowski 

We're also joined by grief educator Eileen Wolfington. Eileen, thank you so much for being here.

Eileen Wolfington

Thank you for having me.

Danny Wicentowski 

Tracy, I want to start with you. You founded STL Deaf Cafe seven years ago. So just give us a bit of an introduction. What is a death cafe? And what motivated you to start your own?

Tracy Gomillion

Absolutely. So death cafe has been in existence since 2010. It was created by John Underwood, a gentleman in England. And the real objective of death cafe is to increase our awareness of death with a view to helping people to make the most of their finite lives. It's entirely volunteer run, so I was able to just use a very easy booklet from their website to get started. There's no charge to attend. And essentially, it's just an open community forum for anyone who's interested to discuss death, dying and grief. Strangers coming together to destigmatize and erase that taboo and have a really important conversation together.

Danny Wicentowski 

Now, in our introduction we heard from from Terri Powell, and she was talking about her interest in exploring death. And part of what she talked to our producers about is that in her experience of her husband dying, she was unsatisfied with that process. She still had questions. Is that a common reaction? Are people coming to these death cafes after experiencing a loved one passing and feeling that there should have been something more here?

Tracy Gomillion

Absolutely. We hear that all the time. And to be clear, we are not meant to be a replacement for a grief support group. There are lots of those out there. They're wonderful. Call 211. United Way will point you in the right direction. But for someone like Terri, whenever she showed up, she really was curious to learn about how could she set up her family to be better prepared whenever her time came? And that's very common, I'd say it's one of the most common themes is people show up after they've experienced what we would call a bad death experience. And something didn't go quite as we would hope and they want to ensure that for their loved ones, that they have a more positive, well planned and executed death for themselves.

Danny Wicentowski 

Eileen, I want to toss this kind of issue to you, you know, in terms of death positivity, and almost sounds like you're encouraging an affirmative kind of approach to death, not just waiting for it to happen not being passive. Is that fair to say?

Eileen Wolfington

That is very fair to say.

Danny Wicentowski 

Yeah. And then what, you know, in terms of death positivity, tell us a bit about what you know, what does positive mean, in this context?

Eileen Wolfington

For me, it's accepting the reality of our mortality. And not waiting until a critical event occurs, a diagnosis or hearing from the doctors, as I heard, when my father passed away, he has perhaps six months to a year to live, the most devastating words that you ever want to hear. And, yes, I grieved, but I was much better prepared than when I lost my mother 20 years ago, due to an unexpected death. And so when we understand and have the conversation about what would you do, what would I do if I was no longer here? And the death cafe, going to a grief support group, attending this weekend's festival that hopefully we can mention later -

Danny Wicentowski 

We absolutely will, yes.

Eileen Wolfington

- becoming curious and exploring. There is so much available today, online. We, Tracy and I and others are hoping to start a movement in St. Louis here in our own backyard where people have access to us. But now with so much happening on Zoom, you know, most of the training that I've received, people from all over the world.

Danny Wicentowski 

Right. And, you know, I think it's so interesting that this is both a new movement, you know, death positivity might not mean not might not be a term that a lot of folks have encountered before now. But this notion that you don't have to approach death with this, this grimness, this finality, this the sense that it means something bad happening perhaps to your family, or to your sense of soul to where you go. There's so much anxiety wrapped up in that. And I wanted to ask you, because when you look at a tradition, like the Day of the Dead, it is such a different vibe, it is a different approach to what death means and the kind of emotional tenor that it brings into our lives. I love, for you to just tell us a bit about you know, that that sense of what death means in that culture? And its particularly I know, it's something that you're connected to very personally.

Eileen Wolfington

Yes, yes. Well, first, I want to clarify that it's not Halloween. And it's not even day of the souls that people often confuse with. It's a celebration of life, where we believe that our ancestors come back to visit us. And I don't mean that literally, that you're going to see a ghost or a living spirit. But it's the essence of who they were and the life they lived. It's a day of remembrance. And it's a day of celebration, so that those emotions that we had when we lost our loved one, hopefully, continue in our hearts. But that now we remember the joy that they lived the joy that they brought in our lives, and maybe not so much the joy, but simply respecting and remembering them as you would when the Veterans Day when we remember those who fought for our country.

Danny Wicentowski 

Yeah. And Tracy, I wanted to ask you, when you're having these kinds of conversations at the Death Cafe, and when there are these kinds of different emotions, there are people who are planning their people who are remembering, what does it feel like? How do you guide these conversations? And what are people getting out of those?

Tracy Gomillion

Well, I think that I feel most comfortable to speak for myself. So I don't know exactly what others are getting. But for me, I find that the more comfortable I become, as Eileen was talking about, was just the fact of that it's not even "if," it's just "when." It's when I die, it's when my loved ones die, that I find that every moment of my living life is so much more precious, so much more valuable, because I know it will end. There is going to be an endpoint and I need to make good use of my time here. And whenever I attend a Death Cafe, and I hear people talking about various experiences, good experiences, negative experiences, confusing experiences, I learn so much, and I'm able to make better plans for myself and my loved ones. I'm able to better guide conversations in the future to help others. But I think that really what it comes down to I mean, the some of the biggest themes of what people talk about is that people don't want to listen, whenever they want to talk about their loved ones who have died. They are trying to have conversations with their loved ones about planning for their eventual death, and people don't want to have those conversations. So we try to help each other and affirm each other that those are still very important conversations to have, and to continue trying to have them. And to kind of help our loved ones ease into that transition of feeling prepared to take that deep dive and remove some of that taboo and stigma. Because death is part of the life process just as much as birth is. So if we could get to a place where we are as comfortable talking about death, as we are about birth, then I think we would all be better served for it.

Danny Wicentowski 

Eileen, I wanted to kind of put that question to you as well. When you're trying to talk with a loved one, preparing for the end, you're, you're bringing up a subject that I think a lot of folks would say, "Well, I don't want to talk about that. We're we're at dinner where I just want to talk about nice things. Tell me what's going on?" How do you bridge that gap? How do you explain, perhaps to a loved one and a parent or relative that this this is a conversation that's being done out of love out of life? And that you want to have it? How do you get around that grief avoidance, or avoidance of these, these very difficult topics?

Eileen Wolfington

It's all in the approach. So I may not even mention death at all. And I simply say, what are your values? What are your hopes? What are your fears? Have you ever lost someone? What was that experience like? If you could have done something different? Or maybe that was you? What would you do differently? And what did you like about that experience? So I don't begin with, "What would you do if you passed away, or you were diagnosed with a chronic illness?" If I can get them to speak about their experience about the loss of someone else, if it doesn't bring back a brief burst, then I say, "what if? let's have a conversation. You were in that position? What might you have done?" And then they might not be so hesitant. But I never make someone get in the conversation, because they're not ready yet. There are those that will openly speak about it, Tracy and I had a wonderful conversation before we joined you. And there are others that if it's not time, it's not their time to talk about it. And they may never talk about it. Like my father. I tried to broach the subject. And he said, "I'm not going to die. I'm going to live to be 100." God love him. Yeah. But as I reflect on the life he led, he was very private. He knew, no strangers, he entertained everyone. But when it came to serious things like that he often didn't go to a funeral because he said, "Eileen, I don't want to remember them like that." So that's what I, my experience growing up was. But because I was so curious what they were like, when someone invited me, I would go so I could see. I was curious.

Danny Wicentowski

It sounds like almost that death is not so much of a terrible traumatic thing, but our, our avoidance of it. Waiting until the very last moment until it comes to us. And then of course, we're panicking, and we're, you know, we're sad, and we thought you would live live to 100. And then it doesn't always happen that way. You know, are people setting themselves up for a much more difficult kind of grief, if they don't approach it now, if they don't give themselves that space?

Eileen Wolfington

I believe that they will, perhaps suffer more emotionally. And that anxiety can result in illness. So people will still grieve. I hurt immensely when dad died, thinking I would never laugh again. But now I laugh every day and even became a laughter yoga leader to honor my dad. And so those emotions, we're, we're more resilient than we can imagine. But not everyone, if they don't have the knowledge of their personal values, their, the experiences they've had with death. You heard Tracy share the negative experiences she had. She didn't lead a life of negativity on the on the extreme. She looks at death positively now, because there are changes that can be made, the more knowledge that we have, the more we seek knowledge with trusted people who will allow us to speak and who listen.

Danny Wicentowski 

Yeah. And Tracy, I wanted to ask you kind of something similar. Our culture seems to also have a lot of opinions about death, and we're in Halloween season. And I know it's a bit you know, it's still, you know, a holiday that is not always very serious, but it does tell us something about our fears, it does kind of, show us a mirror to what culture says about death. We're has, you know, what forces are you working against? I guess is my question. What do you have to unwind from people about what they've learned about how they should interact with death, just from being in our society, from interacting with our popular culture?

Tracy Gomillion

Well, absolutely. Well, I mean, I think that one of the things that I find, I mean, I find it funny, because I just can't believe people invest in these commercials where, you know, it's this very bizarre conversation between like an older parent and their adult child, and they're like, "Honey, I need to tell you, I bought a life insurance policy, because I might die one day." And they always use that in, in-concrete language of like, "it might happen." No, it's going to happen. That's a definite, you're gonna die. And I think that like, I have always liked the opportunity to just remind people like that's, that's not an if that's just a when. So I think that that's part of the thing that we're working against, as people want to put it off in this hypothetical, maybe one day, I die. No, every day, like people die every day. And all of us are going to die and everyone we love is going to die. And if we wait too long, we miss an opportunity. And like Eileen was talking about when my father died, I, I hit the lottery, I had saved up all my courage to call this man and say, I know you're not well, and I know you don't want medical treatment. And that's okay. But let me show up and be there for you. And the coroner told me that he died within an hour of that phone conversation.

Danny Wicentowski 

Wow. I think, to your point, these practical concerns with death, these kinds of conversations are trying to broach, when it comes to the point where someone is is really ill, it feels like you don't have a lot of time to think about them. And, you know, when our producers attended Wednesday's death Cafe, and they talked to attendee Terri Powell, she kind of talked to about this to our producers, Emily Woodbury and Miya Norfleet about this feeling of of wanting to be present for her dying husband, but also feeling pulled in different directions.

Terri Powell  

A lot of people just don't realize how business-like dying is. There is a business to it. You have hospice, but you have paperwork, and then there are things to do. And you can get really caught up in all of that, when you're supposed to be taking care of your loved one.

Danny Wicentowski 

Eileen, what advice would you want to give to someone like Terri, who's looking back at this process and wishing maybe she had been present in a different way, but she was also doing exactly what she needed to. And she was there for her husband at that time.

Eileen Wolfington

Yeah. I remember being told by a co worker, how much they were jealous that I was able to take a leave of absence to be with my father. Initially, I took that offensively. But then I realized it was a privilege. And I work with so many immigrants, who will never go back to their homeland, to be with their loved one. That because I believed that the body is just the body, and that once your spirit leaves in what one may call the afterlife, to continue to remember their spirit and who they were, and send them love, light a candle, prepare some type of ritual, or find someone that can work with you so that you can feel that you're there. It's the essence of the love that you had for them, because grief will transform into love. But the average person doesn't know that.

Danny Wicentowski 

And this weekend, I should mention in our last minute here, is that both of you are going to be trying to, I think welcome more, more pieces of our community into this kind of thinking. And there's an event called "The Last Call: an End of Life Festival" that's happening this Saturday and Sunday at Bellefontaine Cemetery. You can find more about that at lastcallendoflifefestival.com. And you both are going to be there and I think, just very quickly, you know, what, what should people look forward to at this event?

Tracy Gomillion

It's going to be excellent. It's been curated and planned for over two years. We have an excellent poetry reading panel. We have a panel of death doulas, explaining all about that. Eileen speaking on two different topics that she's knowledgeable, knowledgeable about. I'll be hosting two separate Death Cafes. It's family friendly. There's opportunities for children to engage. It really has it all.

Danny Wicentowski 

Tracy Gomillion is the founder of STL Death Cafe, and Eileen Wolfington is a grief educator in St. Louis. Thank you both so much for being here today.

Tracy Gomillion

Thank you.

Eileen Wolfington

Muchas gracias.

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Emily is the senior producer for "St. Louis on the Air" at St. Louis Public Radio.
Miya is a producer for "St. Louis on the Air."