A series, which starts Thursday, November 1, in Springfield, will focus on an often uncomfortable subject: Death. The Springfield-Greene County Library is hosting the series, “Death & Dying: Conversations on End-of-Life Matters,” to help people understand the subject and to start talking about it. Sarah Rosendahl is copywriter for the library district.
"It is the shared human experience. It's going to happen to all of us, and we in no way are trying to rush things. We just find, and studies and reports show, that when we do talk about some of these end of life matters, it makes us just a little bit more comfortable, it takes some of that anxiety away, so that you can concentrate on living your life to the fullest," she said.
The series will touch on several topics, including hospice care and coping with the holidays while grieving. Caitlyn Doughty, who came to Springfield when the library hosted the series in 2016, will be back. The mortician is the author of “From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death.”
"Caitlyn is an L.A.-based mortician. She has a funeral home called Undertaking L.A. It's a progressive, nonprofit funeral home, and she's the start of a YouTube series called "Ask the Mortician" and founder of The Order of the Good Death, so she's kind of the public leading figure for the Death Positive Movement," said Rosendahl.
Doughty will speak Thursday night, November 1, at 7 at Relics Event Center, 2015 W. Battlefield.
Rosendahl said because death and dying can be difficult to talk about, they’ve mixed family events, including a showing of “Coco” to celebrate the Day of the Dead, with more serious programs like “End of Life Matters” and a Hospice Resource Fair.
Learn more about the series at thelibrary.org/death.
