Nursing Club to host second annual Bennie Johnnie Death Cafe event upcoming in November

On Nov. 12, the Nursing Club is hosting its second annual Bennie-Johnnie Death Café event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event will be held in the Gorecki Center Classrooms.

“The goal is to create awareness of death, and to have conversations about death in a more casual place,” said Ann Backes, a new member of the nursing faculty.

Death Cafés were created in England in 2011 by Jon Underwood and aim “to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives. A Death Cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session.”

Death has become a taboo subject in the United States as life spans have elongated and medicine has evolved. “In my nursing career, historically, this topic was an undereducated area, and my opinion is that medicine is so focused on fixing and curing, so there is a view that death is a failure, and I think that that is a societal issue, because just as life and birth are normal part of life, death is a normal part of life. My focus on expanding my education is to normalize death, dying and grief,” nursing faculty member Julie Keller Dornbusch said.

Keller Dornbusch’s background is in thanatology, which is the study of death, dying and grief.

A thanatologist is different from a mortician because a thanatologist deals with the emotional side of death, whereas a mortician focuses on how to care for and dispose of a body.

Even being a mortician is a relatively new science, as in the 1800s and prior centuries, they didn’t embalm bodies.

“There are books about how kings and queens would be sprayed with perfume and adorned with flowers to obscure the scent of their death decay,” Keller Dornbusch said.

As far back as the Middle Ages, there was an abundance of death featured in art and literature. However, as society has become more youth oriented, death has faded into the background, if it’s even mentioned at all.

“We didn’t used to have funerals in funeral homes, we used to have funerals in our homes. We’ve kind of said we don’t want death here anymore,” Keller Dornbusch said.

The burgeoning movement in the United States to embrace death is spearheaded by Minnesota, according to Keller Dornbusch. This is because Minnesota issuch a hub for healthcare.

“This is a nationwide movement. Because death, dying and grief are professionalized now. The American Association for the College of Nursing requires death and dying education for nursing students at the undergraduate and graduate levels,” Keller Dornbusch said.

Students, especially CSB+SJU students, play a key role in demystifying the taboo. This is why, according to junior nursing student Mia Malaske, the Nursing Club is so thrilled to be offering the event.

“Just having a more casual event helps people open up to talking about death,” Malaske said. The Bennie-Johnnie Death Café is not just focused on talking about the death of the self or the death of a loved one; it is also focused on grief and loss in general. In a world where just 30 to 50 years ago talking about smoking was taboo, breaching the topic of death seems groundbreaking.

“I think it starts with conversation and meeting people where they’re at, realizing that everybody has their own story entering college, and how we need to move forward together to change to stigma. It’s about leaning into the conversation when it’s brought up. It’s a part of the circle of life,” said Nursing Club President Ava Lenneman, a junior nursing student.

The Nursing Club is a growing group on campus, targeting not just current nursing students, but aspiring nursing students as well. The event coordination committee was assisted by freshmen prospective nursing students in planning the Bennie-Johnnie Death Café. Keller Dornbusch and Backes agree that “CSB+SJU nursing students lead the way in the nursing world. Projects like this are exactly what puts our students over the top when looking at other opportunities.”

There are a number of community partners working with the Nursing Club on the Bennie-Johnnie Death Café event. “Lauren Murphy is conducting 15-minute yoga sessions in Gorecki Fireside for anyone interested. And we have other special guests. We have animal therapy that currently goes to elementary schools to help children with their grief. Folks from Quiet Oakes, a hospice center, and Bri’s Lodge, a grief support organization nonprofit, will be present,” Backes said.

Nursing Club will be providing light refreshments catered by St. Ben’s Culinary Services in an homage to the original Death Café, which featured “cake and conversation.” In addition to a variety of baked goods, there will be hot chocolate, cider and coffee. For more information about Death Cafés please visit deathcafe.com.