Death Comes to the Cafe

Don’t believe it when people tell you the subject is taboo.

Or maybe it is, and maybe that’s why people want to talk about it. At least, everybody to whom I’ve spoken about Iguanas has been fascinated.

“She was 89-years old, going blind, couldn’t move around well. But the worst was that she couldn’t write—she was a fine poet. And then she thought that she might be getting Alzheimer’s, and she hated the idea of rotting away in a nursing home.”

I was telling an oddly sociable stranger the nuts and bolts of my mother’s death—the death that I had chronicled in Life, Death and Iguanas.

“So what did she do?”

“Well, she decided to stop eating and drinking,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Story got a little more complicated than that,” I said, and went on tell him that my brother and I had wanted to help my mother to her end via a helium tank and a mask. She would place it over her nose and mouth, and then, with her aged, shaky hand turn on the valve. My eldest brother had balked, calling it assisted suicide, and threatening to turn us in to the DA.

Or so we had thought….

“So there we were, three feuding brothers and the problem of what to do with old Mother, as she once called herself. So the eating and drinking thing was all we could do, and initially I thought it would be a terrible death. But I was wrong; my brother was right. She had a wonderful death, having said goodbye to all her friends, and mended her fences. She died in my arms at her home in the woods of Wisconsin. And she changed everybody’s lives.”

“Wow,” he said, “that’s wonderful. Was it difficult for her to do?”

“I asked her in the middle of the fast, and she said ‘it hasn’t been too bad.’ And the best thing? I lost all my fear of death. I know now there’s a way out, and that I could do what she did, if it came to it.”

We chatted a bit more, and he left after a bit.

I tell you this because he also reacted as does everyone—by telling me about his experiences with death, in this case the death of his father.

“I never got to say goodbye to him,” he said. “So I remember the last time I saw him.”

“Happened that way with me, too…”

Well, I been floating about, hoping for some flotsam to write about, and then it hit—the death café! Here’s the skinny, drawn from the website:

At a Death Cafe people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. A Death Cafe is a discussion group about death rather than a grief support or counselling session. Our objective is 'to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives'. 

The Death Cafe model was developed by Jon Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid, based on the ideas of Bernard Crettaz. 

Our Death Cafes are always offered:

 On a not for profit basis

In an accessible, respectful and confidential space 



With no intention of leading people to any conclusion, product or course of action 



Alongside refreshing drinks and nourishing food – and cake!

The first death café was given in London in September of 2011, and since then, there have been some 460 across Europe and the United States. Best of all, they have a tremendous website and an extensive guide as to how to organize your own death café.

Tremendous idea!