By Jennifer Kohlhepp, Managing Editor
EAST WINDSOR — Resident Laurie Dinerstein-Kurs is a chaplain.
“Because of my experiences, I am better able to understand the needs of the dying, disabled, and chronically ill,” she said.
Through her career, she has learned a few things about death, mainly to live each day fully with gratitude, but without regrets.
“I have a wonderful family, a great job, wonderful friends, and absolutely no regrets,” she said. “I have no regrets as I always attempt to rectify, clarify and fix any issue that arises immediately.”
She also does not believe in leaving anything for tomorrow.
“I am all too cognizant that I may not have a tomorrow,” she said. “I am committed to leaving things today in a manner that leaves me comfortable if someone else had to tend to them tomorrow. With all my ‘work’ done, I am ok and I’m ready and I am ok with that.”
With a hope to help other people make the most of their finite lives, she and Chaplain Tedford J. Taylor, director of pastoral care and training at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton, offer Death Café, a place for people, often strangers, to gather, eat, drink tea and coffee and discuss death.
This relatively new social movement affords all the rare opportunity to hear and/or speak about any issue, topic, opinion, concern, or thoughts on death in an environment that is open, nonjudgmental, and welcoming. The ultimate goal of this movement is to work towards changing society’s taboo on discussing death, according to Ms. Dinerstein-Kurs.
“I see it all the time, people don’t talk about death and I see the pain it brings,” she said.
Death Café is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session. The discussions are always offered for free in an accessible, respectful and confidential space, according to Ms. Dinerstein-Kurs.
Death cafes and death dinners are no longer perceived to be oddities that cater to obscure eccentricities or perverted interests, according to Ms. Dinerstein-Kurs.
Worldwide interest is in pushing the boundaries of deathcare with fresh perspectives, she said.
For example, she said, sixty-three percent of voters in New Jersey support the Death with Dignity Act (A2270 and S382), which would give state residents access to a full range of options in the final stages of life to alleviate pain and suffering and, if desired, self-administered prescription medication to end life for people who are terminally ill with a six-month prognosis.
“It is the boomers’ generation that has a particular aversion to growing older the way it was done in previous generations,” Ms. Dinerstein-Kurs said. “No longer are we leaving every decision in the hands of the doctors. As we watch family and friends die in a variety of venues and stages of health…a generation of consumers is determining how and when they want to die.”
Today, people are faced with end-of-life terminology such as advanced healthcare directives, living wills, healthcare power of attorney, healthcare proxy, persistent vegetative state, brain death, pulling the plug, chronic illness, terminal illness, ventilators, resuscitation, hospice, palliative care, assisted suicide, etc.
“We need to be comfortable in exploring what these terms actually mean as they are frequently used and should be understood,” she said. “There is too much to discuss to not discuss”
A goal of attending Death Café would be to formulate “what would best describe excellent deathcare to you,” Ms. Dinerstein-Kurs said.
For example, she said, she decided against a living will and opted for a New Jersey Practitioner Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) instead, which is a lesser known approach to end-of-life planning that has been available in New Jersey since 2011.
POLST is a set of medical orders that help give seriously ill or frail elderly patients more control over their end-of-life care. A single-page document signed by both the doctor and patient/surrogate, POLST specifies the types of medical treatment that a patient wishes to receive toward the end of life. As a result, POLST can prevent unwanted or medically ineffective treatment, reduce patient and family suffering and help ensure that patients’ wishes are honored, according to the State of New Jersey website.
Death Café can help people identify situations that they don’t want at the end of their own lives since science enables people to live so much longer in a variety of physical states. Death Cafe also works to destigmatize death and dying by spurring various “die-logues,” according to Ms. Dinerstein-Kurs.
Since the first Death Café was offered in the UK in September 2011, over 200 have been held for over 3,000 participants, according to the Death Café website.
Locally, Death Café returns to the library room in Perkins Restaurant at 50 Princeton Hightstown Road in East Windsor on Tuesday, Sept. 8, from 6:30-8 p.m. Feel free to be present and participate or merely lurk.
For more information, call 609-443-1844.
