Dispelling the taboo at Thames’ Death Cafe

Talking about death doesn’t have to be morose. In fact, at Thames’ Death Cafe, healing conversations can be shared over cake and coffee – and laughter.
Jenny Dorrington-Colley has been the co-ordinator of the local Death Cafe for four years, starting it up after seeing the need for open, candid, and considerate discussions about kicking the bucket.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the human condition,” she said. “Human beings and their resourcefulness amazes me and, personally, I got tired of the sanitisation of death.
“We don’t do well as Westerners; other cultures do much, much better than us in terms of talking about death – and death is one of the only things that unifies us as humans.”
At a Death Cafe, people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea, and discuss death.
The objective of the not-for-profit social franchise is to “increase awareness of death with a view of helping people make the most of their finite lives”.
Death Cafes are always offered with no intention of leading people to any conclusion, product or course of action, and according to the international website, 178 Death Cafes have been listed for New Zealand.
“There’s a lot of curiosity about it,” Jenny said. “Death Cafe is in 66 countries and these days people’s concerns are about modes of burial and there are conversations about assisted dying… Overall, my experience is that people aren’t afraid of death, it’s the process and what happens afterwards.”
Jenny, who has been a counsellor for more than 30 years, said she noticed how death had started to become a “taboo word and conversation piece”.
“The whole concept of a Death Cafe was to get beyond that – and it’s certainly not a morbid meeting,” she said. “We had a son come to pick his mum up from the Death Cafe and he couldn’t believe he’d come to the right place because everyone was in hysterics.”
The local Death Cafe is currently held inside the Thames Library, mid-morning, but ideally, Jenny would love for the group to be able to meet in a cafe in town in the early evenings, to be able to cater to a wider variety of people.
Nonetheless, the group averages around 12 people per meeting and more are always welcome.
“It’s never going to be for everybody,” Jenny said. “Some people come once, some people come every time, but there is no agenda. There’s nothing asked of them – except to come and have some coffee and cake.”