Opening space for death

[Wendy Farmer-O'Neil]

Well, it seems like I have been doing little else these days.  And while
we’ve been talking about circles of life and mutations of the form, I
thought I’d share a bit about my experiences over the past 8 months.

 

In November my Grandfather died.  I had offered to do something for the
celebration of his life and my Grandmother courageously took me up on it—she
had no idea what OS was, just trusted me.  She had a lot of fear that no one
would stand up and speak.  She had been to a traditional celebration not
long before and no one had shared anything.  I designed a blend of whole
person process and OST that I have blogged about in detail here (HYPERLINK
"http://wordgravity.blogspot.com/2006/11/open-space-memorial.html"http://wor
dgravity.blogspot.com/2006/11/open-space-memorial.html ).  People shared
deeply from their hearts—including many who thought they wouldn’t be able
to.  

 

Then in April, my mother-in-law died.  The news arrived at 7:00 pm Tuesday,
on the evening of the first day of Open Space training session here on
Gabriola with Raffi.  Within an hour my husband was off on his way across
the country to join his family.  Raffi went above and beyond to keep things
running smoothly and me together over the next week.  The funeral was
scheduled for Saturday morning.  I had done a lot of reading and knew that
it was important for my children and I to remember their Gramma at the same
time—some way of being a family together.  But what to do?  I had sixteen
years of ministerial experience with plenty of ceremonial and ritual
background, but what could I do that would be meaningful to two
six-year-olds and a three-year-old?  Open Space has become my touchstone, so
I wondered: Could I adapt OST for our funeral?  Well, as it turned out, yes.
And this is how it went:

 

Ring the bells.

Form a circle.

Welcome to our time and space to remember Gramma.

We are thinking of Daddy and while he isn’t here, we are just the right
people to remember Gramma right now, right here.

We don’t know when a life first begins, but whenever it begins is the right
time.

We don’t know when a life will end, but when it’s over, it’s over.

And what happens in between is the only thing that could have happened.

Our life together is about learning and contributing and Gramma has gone now
to where she can keep doing that.  

Our space is open for sharing our thoughts and feelings about Gramma.

Time for everyone to share.

Placing flowers and pictures.

Form a circle so we can all see each other and feel each other.

Ring the bells.

 

I was amazed at how easily it translated.  Shouldn’t really have been
surprised.  I know it might seem a little bare, but when you are in deep
grieving, those few words seem to take on so much more weight.  It seemed to
work for my children, brought them some comfort and closure.  And I got to
try it out again when our cat (16) died last month in the heat wave.  Seemed
to work just as well the second time.

 

I didn’t ever intend to become experienced in open space and death.  But
life seems to have other ideas.  Two of my clients are hospices.  

 

So this is a bit off the beaten track, but we often talk about living in
open space.  This is just one little example of death in it.  And I know
that some of us out there are working on integrating our open space life
with our family life and this is one example of how I have used it with my
children.  I have also used OST (Stammtische-style) for family meetings and
while the three-year-old usually uses his two feet and is a butterfly, the
six-year-olds totally groove on the post-its and the power. Hope it helps or
inspires.

 

Cheers,

Wendy 

 

Wendy Farmer-O'Neil

Prospera Communications & Consulting Services

250.713.2351/1.800.713.2351

weblog: www.wordgravity.blogspot.com

 


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