Stacy Rivera

Healthy Aging

05/06/2020

Death over Dinner

For my reflective activity I chose to plan a Death over Dinner by following the

guidelines on the website. I chose this option because I believe that end of life care is a taboo

topic that isn’t discussed as much as it should be. My family is a tight knit Hispanic family and

we definitely do not discuss death and dying in my household and I find the same to be true in a

lot of other Hispanic households. However, I know that death can be sudden and unexpected so

discussing end of life care is the greatest gift I could give to my surviving family members.

I invited my parents and my husband to the dinner and although the website didn’t give

me the option to invite my siblings I invited them as well. Ideally, I will die peacefully in my old

age but as I mentioned before death can be sudden so I thought it was important to have my

entire immediate family present at the dinner. We began the dinner by honoring my late grandpa

by sharing our favorite memories of him. The website suggested this sets a positive tone to the

dinner by bringing a sense of gratitude to the table. I believe this act of remembrance shows that

memories live on much longer than grief from the loss of a loved one and I thought it was a

sweet sentiment. During the dinner I appointed a three person committee who would be

consulted on any decisions about whether to continue life-prolonging treatments. I thought this

was a wise idea as normally my husband would be in charge of any medical decisions but there

is a chance that emotions could influence his decisions despite my wishes, therefore having the

additional people would provide more clear headed decision making as well as a support system.

I believe a selected committee who knows their loved one’s wishes beforehand is the best way to
go regarding end of life care. A study performed on 147 elderly Latinos explained the following,

“If seriously ill, 84% of participants would prefer medical care focused on comfort rather than

care focused on extending life, yet 47% had never discussed such preferences with their family

or doctor and 77% had no advance directive. Most participants favored family-centered decision

making (64%) and limited patient autonomy (63%)” (Kelley et al., 2010). The fact that almost

over 75% of participants had no advance directive and 47% hadn’t discussed their end of life

preferences shows that end of life preparation and discussions are not being had nearly enough

and a committee would help change that. Additionally, a committee supports the family-centered

decision making that many Hispanics including myself prefer. My committee would consist of

my husband, my oldest sister, and my dad as I think he is the most even keeled emotionally.

The second topic discussed was what I would want done with my body after I died at

which time I informed my family that I wish to be cremated rather than buried when I pass. All

of the members of my family who have passed away have been buried, however, more members

of my family including my parents are showing more of an interest in cremation. Research by

Virginia R. Beard and William C. Burger states the following, “Cremation, an alternate to the

traditional funeral, wherein the individual’s remains are burned and the ashes are returned to the

family to be displayed in an urn, buried, or scattered currently comprises 46% of funerals in the

United States and has been growing in popularity since the early 1980s (Beard & Burger, 2015).

The older generation of my family is very religious and considers cremation to be disrespectful

before God but the younger generation is much more open minded to the idea. Body disposal

practices are fascinating and continue to evolve even beyond burial and cremation to include

donation of the body to science and corpse compositing.

 The website encouraged participants to discuss funeral arrangements such as casket

preferences, special song requests, and end the dinner by telling my guests what I appreciate

about them. Additionally, the website provided reading and listening material to complete before

the dinner which I learned a lot from. I was particularly moved by the article The Top 5 Regrets

of the Dying in which a palliative nurse shared the most common regrets that patients reported.

The top five regrets as witnessed by nurse Bronnie Ware were as follows: unfulfilled dreams,

working too hard, lack of courage to express true feelings, losing touch with old friends, and not

allowing oneself to be truly happy (Steiner). I was most impacted by the regret of unfulfilled

dreams because before I returned to school I thought that getting a college degree would be an

unfulfilled dream I had. I had let a lot of time go by after high school and I felt embarrassed

about returning to school and being an older student. Additionally, I was worried about the

money as I didn’t want to be buried in student debt. However, I knew that if I didn’t go back to

school and earn a degree I would regret it for the rest of my life. Nurse Ware’s findings show

that regret follows you until the end and I’m happy that I’m fulfilling my dream. After reading

the article I felt inspired to live my life to the fullest and reach out to old friends who I haven’t

spoken to in a long time. This end of life reflection was an eye-opening experience that showed

me that I can’t put off conversations such as death simply because they’re too hard or too sad.

On the contrary, it’s one of the most thoughtful things I could do for my family otherwise they’d

have to make these decisions during their time of grief. Lastly, it encouraged me to live my life

to the fullest while I still have a chance.

Resources:

Beard, V. R., & Burger, W. C. (2015). Change and Innovation in the Funeral Industry.

OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 75(1), 47–68. doi: 10.1177/0030222815612605

Kelley, A. S., Wenger, N. S., & Sarkisian, C. A. (2010). Opiniones: End-of-Life Care

Preferences and Planning of Older Latinos. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society,

58(6), 1109–1116. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2010.02853.x

Steiner, S. (2012, February 1). Top five regrets of the dying. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying