This past week was no exception. I had a lovely lunch with a donor, an internal faculty member and champion, and two students. I always feel incredibly lucky to step away from the office, from email, from daily tasks, in order to facilitate these conversations.
At the end of this week's lunch my academic colleague was asking about my trip a few weeks ago. I mentioned that I had been at a conference, and she then asked a few more questions and I ended up describing my presentation to her.
Her response was very encouraging to me. She was incredibly inquisitive, and genuinely interested in what I had to say. She asked many questions about how I 'got into' death and grief, and listened intently as I described my side-passion. The two young students were noticeably silent.
I tried to engage them both in the conversation, mentioning that I was likely around their age when I first took a thanatology course. To no avail.
But I really can't blame them.
1) I always remind myself that we never know what others are experiencing. One or both students may be grieving in one way or another and it may have felt like a topic they were not ready to engage in. I think it is important to always give the benefit of the doubt here - we will never know what other people are going through. Go gentle.
And/or 2) like many young people (they were in the third year of undergraduate studies, or roughly 20 or 21 years of age) they may just not have the capacity or willingness to engage in death conversation.
And if it was #2... this just makes me sad. I mean it's great that many young adults have never had to encounter death personally, but so very sad that we don't better equip people.
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