By Lauren and I were out getting sushi and sake when another person she knew came up to our table to say hello. Lauren’s friend asked how we knew each other and I immediately said, “Oh, from Death Cafe!” Her friend was first taken aback, then wary, but politely interested. When she left I turned to Lauren and asked if it was okay that I shared that part of her life. Lauren assured me that she tells people about Death Cafe all the time, and enjoys seeing how they react.
So is the experience of Death Cafe – equal parts excited to talk about death, but with the careful understanding that it might not be for everyone.
*The names in this article have been changed to enable the subjects to remain anonymous
What is a Death Cafe all about? My experience studying, participating and hosting Death Cafes
What are Death Cafes?
Death Cafe is a ‘social franchise’ whose principles were developed in 2011 by Jon Underwood and his mother, Sue Barsky Reid, to help facilitate easy conversation about death with the comfort of food and drink. Death Cafe is a volunteer operation, with hosts who organize small groups in cities and towns around the world. Death Cafes groups meet in cafes, of course, but also in public libraries, churches, community centers, people’s houses, cemeteries, and beyond, to share foods, drinks, and conversation about death. Since the pandemic, many of these meetings have shifted online, and while there is no shared food and drink, the conversations continue.
Death Cafes have no theme, agenda, or foregone conclusion. Topics for discussion can be broached by any member of the group. However, they are not meant to be grief or end of life support groups. Volunteer leaders are not required and often do not have training for psychological support or counseling. Although people experiencing grief are welcome to join and talk about it, the group is not designed to offer mental health advice.
If you are wondering what to expect at your first Death Cafe, you should first know that there are no requirements to speak. At in-person meetings, people will often sit around a table or in a circle, group-sharing style. The facilitator will provide an introduction and brief explanation of what Death Cafe is and any guidelines they want to highlight. Individual Death Cafes may follow certain customs, like no “crosstalk” in which a response to another person includes advice or critique. Armed with drinks and snacks, the facilitator will open the conversation by asking for anyone to begin. Then the conversation flows from there.
Joining A Death Cafe
There have been Death Cafes in over 80 countries. You can find one in nearly every major city, and the pandemic created a space for many groups to go online, opening Death Cafes up to people from anywhere in the world. I joined my local Death Cafe in November 2020, which had moved online by that point. My joining was a little more nuanced than most, because I was also conducting research for my dissertation. So I attended the first Cafe, got the host Carl’s information, and confirmed that it was okay that I join and use some of the information for my project (called participant-observation in anthropology lingo). Carl agreed, and we came up with a system for me to “announce” myself to the group and receive everyone’s consent.
I like to think that my presence didn’t disrupt the flow of conversation, but that is one of the challenges of doing anthropological research. I had to balance my desire to chat (and I am chatty) with my work as an objective observer. During events, I was careful not to direct the conversation, contributing to the existing topic instead. If you attend as a participant only, you don’t have to worry too much about these dynamics!
In those first months of my attendance, conversations ranged from end of life arrangements and choices about disposition, to what song you wanted played at your funeral, and even to marriage plans. We talked as much about life as we did about death. And, as the COVID pandemic raged, we had a lot to discuss.
Hosting Death Cafes
After more than six months of regular attendance, Carl, who was the original host of our Death Cafe, and his co-host Cynthia asked me to consider joining them as a Death Cafe facilitator. I was honored and excited to be considered, and I soon joined the hosting rotation. While I hosted, I did not take any notes for my dissertation. I wanted to be present and free to direct the conversation if needed.
During my first month as a host, Carl attended and offered me feedback. He shared advice about embracing silence and allowing it to settle. Someone will always break the silence, he told me. And, if I’m being honest, I am usually the person to do so. But as a host I worked hard to let those silent moments stretch, sometimes longer than a minute. This advice has also served me in my teaching. Someone always gives in to the urge to speak. Carl said, “if you are not a trained facilitator, read up on facilitation and attend a Death Cafe with an experienced Death Cafe leader. Besides setting up the context and a few ground rules, the less you say as leader the better. People attend because they want to talk, or hear other peoples’ experiences, not yours.”
A common technique among first and last responders is to make light of death or the situation you are in. As a former death investigator, I still find this impulse arises when the mood is low, and I struggled with this impulse as a Death Cafe host. But I fought it, because the objective of Death Cafe is not to make light of death, it is to face it, in whatever form that takes.
A note for anyone interested in hosting a Death Cafe: to use the name and act as an affiliate with Death Cafe, volunteers must sign up through the official website and agree to the guiding principles.
Making Friends As A (Certain Kind) of Adult
Through hosting and attending Death Cafes, I have had the pleasure of making a few friends. We go out to dinner and grab coffee. Sometimes we talk about death, but often we just talk about our lives and other shared interests.
I have just entered my 30s, and making friends as an adult is proving to be pretty difficult, especially with the pandemic limiting in-person interactions. The beauty of our Death Cafe community is that I meet people who are outside of my generation and typical friend group. I received advice about my upcoming wedding from octogenarians who have been married for fifty years. I hear the perspective of people who are, by typical standards, much closer to death than I am.
Carl and Cynthia have worked hard to build a community around their Death Cafes, which now number well over 100 in the almost 10 years that Carl has been hosting. Before COVID, our Death Cafe would meet in a local chapel next to a sprawling cemetery. They would share drinks and cakes, embodying the model developed by Underwood.
Conclusion
I am hopeful that our group will return to in-person soon, allowing for that important face-to-face interaction that makes death so real. Carl explains that “the consistent support we have received is proof enough for me that talking about death is life affirming. Sure, there are serious and sad moments, but there is laughter, learning and light.” And this has been my experience too.
As a researcher and a participant and a facilitator and a former death worker, our Death Cafe has allowed me to see the depth and breadth of the way people think about death and dying. And even though my research is winding down, I’m still an active participant and facilitator for my Death Cafe. After all, it’s my field of study, and I still like to talk about it!
You can find a Death Cafe by searching on the official website, but affiliates also post meetings on group gathering websites like Eventbrite and Meetup. Carl advises anyone considering starting their own Death Cafe to “follow the guidelines for setting up and running a Death Cafe found on www.deathcafe.com. Follow them exactly and consistently. They work.”
If you would like to talk more about death, fear death and dying, or are experiencing grief, Death Cafes are a wonderful place to sit with those perspectives. As Carl likes to say, “talking about death won’t kill you.”
I am new to the Death Cafe scene. I have attended a few online meetings, and have read many
posts from D C websites. From one D C site; I read the following:
“… conversations to increase awareness of death with the view to making the most of life”. I posted a general question on their message board asking how does the “awareness of death” contribute to making the most of life? “How does this happen, what are the mechanics of the process” I Asked?
The organizer wrote an extensive reply which seemed to pretty much reflect the general philosophy of the D C movement, one of embracing death in terms of worldly or human values. Below is my reply in which I tried to expand upon the D C philosophy to make it more inclusive of reality.
Dear Sir,
Let me explain what I meant when I said “… your goals are too limited in their scope, in that they are not oriented toward the best or greatest good of the person”. So what does “The best or greatest good of a person” consist of? To answer this question we must first ask, and answer, two other very basic questions: “Why do we exist”, and “What is man”?
“Why do we exist?” The answer is that we were created by God so as to know, love and serve Him in this life, & be happy with Him in heaven forever in the next life, after we die. This life is a test, to see if we are worthy of all the great gifts of eternal happiness that God wishes to give us.
“What is man”? Man is a composite being consisting of both a material and a spiritual component. Man differs from God and the angels in that we have a material body, while they do not. The spiritual portion of man (the soul) is what gives life to the body, it is the animating principle of human life. When does life begin? It begins at conception. When the female egg cell, and the male sperm cell unite in the mother’s womb, the first cell combination (called a Zygote) is formed. At this precise instant God infuses the soul into the fertilized egg, and a new human being is created.
When does death occur? As life begins by the joining of body and soul, death is the reverse of that process. Death occurs at the separation of body and soul. At that point, the body dies, but the soul does not die. Once created, the soul will exist forever. In other words, once created, the human person will exist for all eternity. True, our physical bodies will die (temporarily) and then be reanimated and reunited with our soul at the General Resurrection at the end of the world – a glorified body for the elect – a dammed body for the reprobate. So our ultimate purpose in life, our “best and greatest good” is to live our lives in conformity with God’s Will, which will gain for us eternal happiness in heaven after we leave this earthly life.
From what I can tell, the basic philosophy of the Death Cafe movement is, in many cases, a rejection of God’s plan for the human person. For example, a common topic of discussion at D C meetings is the subject of euthanasia, mercy killing, assisted suicide, etc, or whatever name one wishes to use to describe the procedure. In this case we are making man the final decision maker as to how we end our lives. Objectively speaking, the act of terminating one’s own life is still murder – a violation of the 5 th. commandment. So the person dies with the sin of murder on his/her soul – they are now dead – with no chance of repentance, and must now appear before Christ for judgment (Hebrews 9:27). Not a good situation. Anyone who dies in the state of serious sin has condemned themselves to hell for all eternity, because, as scripture says, “Into heaven nothing defiled shall enter” (Revelation 21:27).
We need to remember that our bodies are not our own, they belong to God. If we kill or injure ourselves (or someone else), we are injuring or destroying God’s property. Scripture is very clear on this point.
“Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own, for you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body”. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
God commands us to do all that we can to help people save their soul and get to heaven. He warns us that we will be held accountable for people who are lost because of our actions, or inaction.
“And at the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel: and thou shalt hear the word out of my mouth, and shalt tell it them from me. If, when I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die: thou declare it not to him, nor speak to him, that he may be converted from his wicked way, and live: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand…. .” (Ezekiel 3:16-19; and 33:6-9).
Also, in the spiritual life, their is no neutrality. Again from scripture, our Lord warns us that fence sitters are not acceptable. Jesus says explicitly: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Matthew 12:30). Again remember the passages from Ezekiel above.
Lastly, this life is not the end, it is only the beginning, the beginning of our eternal life, our life in eternity. Therefore if we are not living our lives in conformity with God’s laws, then let us repent while there is still time. Let us exert ourselves to the utmost to accomplish the work of our salvation. Do now, what, on the Day of Judgment, you would then wish you would have done. For at the moment of death, the time of grace will have passed, the time of justice will have come. (Hebrews 9: 27; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Romans 14:10, 12; Matthew 7:13-14; 25:31-47).
Additional resource material on the art of dying well.
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/the-art-of-dying-and-eternal-happiness
I am new to the Death Cafe scene. I have attended a few online meetings, and have read many
posts from D C websites. From one D C site; I read the following:
“… conversations to increase awareness of death with the view to making the most of life”. I posted a general question on their message board asking how does the “awareness of death” contribute to making the most of life? “How does this happen, what are the mechanics of the process” I Asked?
The organizer wrote an extensive reply which seemed to pretty much reflect the general philosophy of the D C movement, one of embracing death in terms of worldly or human values. Below is my reply in which I tried to expand upon the D C philosophy to make it more inclusive of reality.
Dear Sir,
Let me explain what I meant when I said “… your goals are too limited in their scope, in that they are not oriented toward the best or greatest good of the person”. So what does “The best or greatest good of a person” consist of? To answer this question we must first ask, and answer, two other very basic questions: “Why do we exist”, and “What is man”?
“Why do we exist?” The answer is that we were created by God so as to know, love and serve Him in this life, & be happy with Him in heaven forever in the next life, after we die. This life is a test, to see if we are worthy of all the great gifts of eternal happiness that God wishes to give us.
“What is man”? Man is a composite being consisting of both a material and a spiritual component. Man differs from God and the angels in that we have a material body, while they do not. The spiritual portion of man (the soul) is what gives life to the body, it is the animating principle of human life. When does life begin? It begins at conception. When the female egg cell, and the male sperm cell unite in the mother’s womb, the first cell combination (called a Zygote) is formed. At this precise instant God infuses the soul into the fertilized egg, and a new human being is created.
When does death occur? As life begins by the joining of body and soul, death is the reverse of that process. Death occurs at the separation of body and soul. At that point, the body dies, but the soul does not die. Once created, the soul will exist forever. In other words, once created, the human person will exist for all eternity. True, our physical bodies will die (temporarily) and then be reanimated and reunited with our soul at the General Resurrection at the end of the world – a glorified body for the elect – a dammed body for the reprobate. So our ultimate purpose in life, our “best and greatest good” is to live our lives in conformity with God’s Will, which will gain for us eternal happiness in heaven after we leave this earthly life.
From what I can tell, the basic philosophy of the Death Cafe movement is, in many cases, a rejection of God’s plan for the human person. For example, a common topic of discussion at D C meetings is the subject of euthanasia, mercy killing, assisted suicide, etc, or whatever name one wishes to use to describe the procedure. In this case we are making man the final decision maker as to how we end our lives. Objectively speaking, the act of terminating one’s own life is still murder – a violation of the 5 th. commandment. So the person dies with the sin of murder on his/her soul – they are now dead – with no chance of repentance, and must now appear before Christ for judgment (Hebrews 9:27). Not a good situation. Anyone who dies in the state of serious sin has condemned themselves to hell for all eternity, because, as scripture says, “Into heaven nothing defiled shall enter” (Revelation 21:27).
We need to remember that our bodies are not our own, they belong to God. If we kill or injure ourselves (or someone else), we are injuring or destroying God’s property. Scripture is very clear on this point.
“Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own, for you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body”. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
God commands us to do all that we can to help people save their soul and get to heaven. He warns us that we will be held accountable for people who are lost because of our actions, or inaction.
“And at the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel: and thou shalt hear the word out of my mouth, and shalt tell it them from me. If, when I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die: thou declare it not to him, nor speak to him, that he may be converted from his wicked way, and live: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand…. .” (Ezekiel 3:16-19; and 33:6-9).
Also, in the spiritual life, their is no neutrality. Again from scripture, our Lord warns us that fence sitters are not acceptable. Jesus says explicitly: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Matthew 12:30). Again remember the passages from Ezekiel above.
Lastly, this life is not the end, it is only the beginning, the beginning of our eternal life, our life in eternity. Therefore if we are not living our lives in conformity with God’s laws, then let us repent while there is still time. Let us exert ourselves to the utmost to accomplish the work of our salvation. Do now, what, on the Day of Judgment, you would then wish you would have done. For at the moment of death, the time of grace will have passed, the time of justice will have come. (Hebrews 9: 27; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Romans 14:10, 12; Matthew 7:13-14; 25:31-47).
Additional resource material on the art of dying well.
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/the-art-of-dying-and-eternal-happiness