by Allison Opson Clement, News Editor

“What we’re there to do is to provide a safe place for people to talk about their feelings about death and dying” – Dr. Paula Baldwin

Death Cafe will open a free, informal discussion to the public about death and dying, at 2 p.m. in Gentle House on Sunday, Nov. 2.

A Death Cafe is an informal venue: people sit at tables, snack and talk. Typically, each table will have a facilitator, whose task is to keep the conversation focused on death.

“What we’re there to do is to provide a safe place for people to talk about their feelings about death and dying,” said Dr. Paula Baldwin, assistant professor of communication studies and the main organizer for Western’s first Death Cafe.

“There’s a tremendous amount of superstition about talking about death,” said Baldwin. For example, Baldwin said, people may retain the sense that if they speak about dying directly, it will happen to them. “The Grim Reaper, it’s like that’s a real person,” she added.

To deal with that feeling, many euphemisms were developed to avoid the direct mention of death. People speak of losing a loved one, Baldwin explained, but that person is not simply wandering around the building; if someone has ‘moved on’ they aren’t living in the next town over.

“People have a hard time talking about death and dying. You know, there’s a lot of metaphors and figures of speech we use,” Baldwin said. It’s a grassroots movement to help normalize the conversation, she added.

“This doesn’t come from a morbid place, no,” said Kate Brassington, a Portland Death Cafe organizer. “My focus is on life, and on the living and what death means to those.”

The Death Cafe welcomes a variety of individuals: those who have suffered a loss, those who may be aware that they are coming to the end of their own lives, even people who, for whatever reason, are simply curious, or interested in talking about death in an open way.

“I don’t think the appropriate time to talk about it is towards the end,” said Baldwin. “None of us are getting out alive.”

However, this is not a grief counseling group. That, said Baldwin, they leave to professionals.

“Every other person I’ve invited into this conversation, with an open heart and an open mind, looked me in the eye, and took my hand, and thanked me, for letting them be who they are: a person who will die, and who has one chance to do it, and who has one chance to live, because of it,” said Brassington.

After one email, 18 of the 25 spots had been taken within five days.

“For me, this seems like a natural extension of what I do,” Baldwin said, who has been involved in end-of-life research since 2007.

Historically, as family members aged, their relatives would take care of them, ease them through their final days, prepare the bodies and bury them. These days, however, people frequently have only minimal experience, which only serves to exacerbate the problem.

“It’s very much removed from the actual process,” Baldwin said. She considers this shift similar to what happened with the food industry: whereas people formerly had to kill and prepare animals they intended to eat; now we get our meat in plastic packages.

John Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid used Swiss psychologist Bernard Crettaz’s ideas to create the first Death Café. A social worker named Lizzy Miles met Underwood and brought back the idea to the United States. Since its beginning in 2011, according to deathcafe.com, over 12,000 people have attended Death Cafes.

“That was a rousing success,” said Baldwin. “It’s taken off.”

Baldwin said that one London group is planning to make theirs a permanent fixture, rather than assembling for individual meetings.

“Whatever that spark is that makes us alive, if you’ve ever seen a dead body, you know that that’s gone,” said Baldwin. “It really gives you a nice appreciation of life.”

For more information, to learn how to find a Death Cafe or start your own, visit deathcafe.com.