Photo credit: Tea Krulos
"Death midwife" Kelly Teague hosts a regular meet-up called the Pop-up Death Cafe, which tries to break the taboo of talking about death.
When Kelly Teague started down a career path to be a funeral director, she found it to be a struggle, noting that the “funeral industry can be cold, pun intended.” She worked in the medical field, but after her mom died, she was inspired to return to funeral services and studied to become a certified “death midwife.” She also hosts a regular meet-up called the Pop-up Death Cafe, which tries to break the taboo of talking about death.
Off the Cuff met Teague at an appropriate spot to talk about her career—Forest Home Cemetery, one of the spots the Pop-Up Death Cafe has met in the past (other meetups have been at coffee shops and libraries around Wisconsin).
What is a “death midwife?”
We offer support to the dying, we help them take care of all the necessary paperwork, to relay anything to the family that they don't feel comfortable talking about, because not everybody is close with their families. We are there for them for whatever they need done, if they need any spiritual support, we can either help them ourselves or find somebody that can help with that, but we're mainly there to hold a hand, to let them know that they’re not alone.
I started doing that and then I found a position at the funeral home that I work at now, and I got my license reinstated, so I’m still an embalmer, a funeral director apprentice. I do like that aspect. I have a lot of freedom and a lot of flexibility.
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I know that it sounds morbid, but I have a fascination with death. Once my mom passed away, I realized all kinds of things, there is a whole process of grief, regret, and I wanted to somehow be out there and help people with their own grief processing. I’m not a therapist or anything like that, but I feel what I do nowadays is exactly where I need to be, helping people plan funerals and just getting the basics together, because I don't think that we talk about death enough.
Tell us more about this opportunity to talk more about the subject, Death Cafe. What is it?
Death Cafe is an international phenomenon, it originated in the UK with Jon Underwood, he was dying of a type of leukemia and discovered he couldn't talk to his loved ones about it. They were uncomfortable every time he tried to talk to them about dying experiences, so he created Death Cafe so he could get others together to talk about it.
Anyone can have one, you don't need to be an expert at all. I've had them virtually now that the pandemic has hit, but I've done a lot of in-person cafes and I think they are all very different—the range of people and conversation, some have been humorous, some sad, you just never know what you’ll get when people start talking about it.
Death Cafe is by no means a support group or anything like that, the only agenda is there is no agenda. The only thing we talk about is death and dying and anything in between that realm, so we've talked about hauntings, we’ve talked about what we want to experience when our time comes, how we would like to die.
Have you seen increased interest in this because of the pandemic?
Oh my God, yes. My first virtual one was at the beginning of April and that’s all we talked about—“where is everybody at, where are you coming from?” I had people from Texas, there was one New Yorker and the stuff that she talked about seeing was horrific. I’ve had all these people reach out to me, like “Kelly, what do I do about this? What if I get this, or what if my mom dies of it?” All kinds of questions—I’m glad and I’m honored that I can help because I have all of this experience, but it's also just kind of crazy to me that it took this for us to start talking about it.
You can find out more about death midwives at deathmidwife.org. The Pop Up Death Cafe’s next virtual meetup is Sept. 5, you can find more info in their Facebook group.
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