I can remember the exact moment, many years ago now, a friend mentioned a death café that was taking place near to where I was living. She just dropped it casually in to our conversation as a group of us sat drinking coffee while our pre-school children played together on the floor. She mentioned it in the context of talking about her own fear of death saying that her husband, a psychiatrist as it happens, thought she should go along to the local death café.

It was a concept I’d been aware of for a while but to learn that there was one taking place local to me, this was exciting. Thrilling. Scary. A surge of adrenaline washed through me. At virtually the next opportune moment I was on the internet, finding out when the next meeting would be taking place. I was concerned to see I’d just missed one. But then relieved to see another was planned for a few weeks’ time. 

Before going to that first café I was unsure of what would happen or who I would meet. I had little idea of what to expect beyond the information on the deathcafe.com website. Here I learned that a death café is ‘a group directed discussion of death, with no agenda, objectives or themes’. It specifically stated that it is ‘a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session.’ I also read about the origin of the movement and the huge number of places where they were happening across the world. 

I scrutinised the couple of photographs I could see that had been taken at a previous café for visual clues. Based on probably this, but also my own imagination, I pictured three or four random strangers sitting round a table for an hour. One thing I had been told by the organiser of my local café was that I must be punctual. The door would close at a certain time and late comers would not be admitted once the session had started. Needless to say, I was uncharacteristically on time that night.   

I was pretty apprehensive when I went along. The unknowness of it all. The idea that I was actively going to meet up with strangers, specifically to talk about something I’d in the past tried to avoid thinking about. Would anyone else actually turn up? And what on earth would they be like? I mentioned it in passing to my husband, but certainly didn’t mention it to any friends. I couldn’t imagine what they would think.  

My overriding memory from that very first evening death café I went to was the buzz of chatter that I could hear before I even walked into the large room where the café was taking place, and the amount of people that were there. If not for the lack of champagne glasses in hand, I could have stumbled into the middle of a wedding reception. So it’s not just me that wants to talk about this stuff then, I thought to myself.

I’ve subsequently been to several death cafes in different UK towns and cities and that first one I ever attended was definitely the biggest. They are often much smaller and intimate affairs, some with just a small handful of people. At larger death cafes the group separates into a number of smaller groups of five or six people so the experience is in many ways similar to a smaller gathering.   

Another thing that struck me about that first, and also every subsequent, death café is the variety of reasons why a person might come along, and indeed the ‘type’ of person who attends. Most come alone, some come with friends. But they do come; people of different ages, backgrounds, professions. 

Though they may enjoy it and find it interesting, many people only feel the need to attend one death cafe. Others may go regularly, and others still dip in and out. There’s no right or wrong way. I originally attended a death café for unashamedly personal reasons. As I’ve moved around the country, I’ve been curious to attend different death cafes and see how they compare. Another reason I’ve returned is that in all the death café’s I’ve attended, I’ve never had the same conversation twice. There are a surprising number of different angles on the subject of death as it turns out, and not all of them macabre or sombre. Laughter is a frequent visitor. 

I’ve also continued to go for professional reasons. I’ve been struck by the need I can see that there is in society for a space like this and am particularly interested in how attending a death café can be a helpful experience for someone who experiences death anxiety. 

There are a couple of reasons why I think death cafes are a useful and important space. At a death café the explicit permission that one has to talk about this taboo subject of death and dying is freeing. Talking with complete strangers about something as intimate as the prospect of one’s own inevitable death, or even just death more generally, is somehow bonding. These are often conversations you haven’t been able to have with your family or closest friends. 

They are also really democratic in that no one has the answers or is an expert. No matter what your professional background or level of education, we are all equals on this subject. Maybe it’s also that death is something we can’t have much control over and we inevitably have to do alone. But talking about death is something we can actively take control over initiating and it’s something we can do together with other human beings who face the same dilemma. 

An absolutely essential component of any death café is the consuming of tea and cake. So fundamental is this, a steaming cup of tea is a part of the death café logo. There’s a certain beauty in talking about a subject like death, over something as comforting and predictable as tea and cake. Humans coming together to share this food and drink that sustains and nourishes life whilst contemplating the finiteness of that life; it’s like a collective effort at imposing some small civilising process on what is ultimately a completely uncivilisable future event.   

The other experience I’ve always had from any death café is that of it being life affirming. Reflecting on one’s mortality highlights the fact that if you are talking about it, it hasn’t happened yet. The death café objective of ‘increasing awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their finite lives’ makes a lot of sense to me and is very much the ethos I’ve picked up from every café I’ve attended. Attending a death café is a wake-up call to live our lives as fully and intentionally as possible. 

Which ultimately is surely what we should all be striving to do.