DEATH...well-planned?

Look world, RantWoman is definitely a Quaker in progress. RantWoman is already well peeved in advance, which may or may not be the first reaction one would expect to a workshop on Death and Dying. Originally this was billed as an event on grief. RantWoman does not have a negative opinion about the expansion. She DOES have an opinion about an omission:


"DEATH AND DYING", NOV 20
This special workshop on Death and Dying": Caring for Ourselves and our Loved Ones When They Die is an opportunity for in-depth consideration of the effect of others deaths on our lives. Held
November 20, 12 noon – 4pm.

Every few years University Friends have gathered for a work-shop on concerns about Death & Dying. Our Faith & Practice re-minds us: "Death often faces us with the most difficult of questions. Although life instinctively avoids death, death is not the opposite of life; it is essential to the ongoing, changing nature of life." Again this year we will gather, on Saturday 11/20, to worship and share as well as to look at several topics that arise when a family member or loved one ages or has a life-threatening disease. Please join us for a lunch at noon (brown-bag or potluck), leading into focus groups on Caring for Aging or Ill Loved Ones, Forming a Care Committee, Making End-of-Life Decisions [Wills & Health Directives], Caring for the Caregivers, Letting Go, Hospice, and Grief and Time for Mourning.

Adult Religious Education Committee request you sign up on the table outside the Office, or call xxxx to ask him to add your name.

RantWoman tried THREE TIMES (enough said?) in response to specific public invitation for input to have a conversation with the clerk of Adult Religious Education about anniversaries and unexpected circumstances and space in the workshop for such. RantWoman would characterize the best of these conversations as dismissive!

RantWoman has stumbled onto a recurring theme: a thought in passing as she writes: if this Friend had asked RantWoman her opinion, RantWoman MIGHT tell him to give himself space for still actively grieving what RantWoman thinks must have been a very difficult person and MAYBE supplying more than one name in case someone were uncomfortable with a specific name and a sensitive topic.

RantWoman has in fact had the unexpected circumstances conversations on topical timelines every year for several years running with the very same Friend though they seem not to have registered. That would be another reason to advocate better self-care in the form of MAYBE letting God and one's community carry part of the matter.

By unexpected circumstances RantWoman means things like

a bicycle accident

or

a bus accident

or another Seattle bus accident that RantWoman pretty much cannot avoid regular opportunities to think about

or a bus accident and another Seattle bus accident ... that both fall on the same late November date significant to RantWoman for another reason

or things like suicide, violent crime, stillbirth, miscarriage....

Based on the non-conversations and the omissions, RantWoman is meditating about who she might call to disabuse herself of not very high expectations about the workshop for any circumstance but the well-planned march of aging. RantWoman expects God will show up regardless. God is not the problem. RantWoman is debating whether she will be led to attend. RantWoman admits a certain morbid fascination about another topic but RantWoman needs to discern whether morbid and centered are going to be incompatible in this situation.

And speaking of not planning to die, RantWoman again calls to mind the accidental inquiry from the summer
Do we ask Friends to remember our Meeting in their wills?

Okay, RantWoman admits another morbid tinge to the inquiry right above. Recently RantWoman spent a couple days hanging with RantMom after a RantMom vs Pickup encounter. RantMom was singularly unamused by a distinctlhy ill-timed call the day after her accident from her college alumni association inquiring whether RantMom was interested in a legacy donation. Uh, NOT TODAY!