Connection Cafés bring Sisters together

Connection Cafés, sponsored by The Peaceful Presence Project, are set to provide a welcoming and compassionate space for supportive conversations about illness, death, and grief. The weekly gatherings, held in Sisters on Wednesdays from January 29 through February 26, 3 to 4:30 p.m. at Sisters Library, will bring people together for supportive dialogue.

“We all know how difficult it can be navigating care in the best of times, and we all know the challenges that are present in a rural and dispersed community like Sisters. We also know that our neighbors here in Sisters show up for each other, and that people want to show that they care. So, we wondered, what if our community came together to support one another during times of illness, dying, and grief?” organizer Holly Haddad told The Nugget.

According to Haddad and Michael Deal, “chronic perceived loneliness has been linked to an increased risk of a variety of health concerns, and social integration has been found to be the leading factor in decreasing mortality across a range of serious conditions.”

From the report Health Care in America — The Experience of People with Serious Illness:

• People with serious illness experience distress over and above the physical symptoms of their specific condition. Social isolation, a known risk factor for worse health outcomes, is common, with one-third of respondents reporting feeling left out, lacking in companionship, or isolated from others. A “Community Connector” approach is comunity-driven, rather than medicalized.

Deal and Haddad note that, “It offers a fresh perspective to the notion that our mortality is only the purview of health professionals and medical systems, and that dying ought to be sequestered in hospitals or palliative care units.

“It understands death as a normal social occurrence that influences our community as a whole. In doing so, it acknowledges the effects that an individual’s death has on others, both through the dying process itself and after death. It creates space and social support for our neighbors who are navigating illness, death, and grief.”