Reverend Karen Johnston, a Unitarian Universalist minister, has a passion for encouraging conversation about death, so much so that she hosts a “Date with Death Club” and has a “death deck” of conversation cards aimed at prompting discussions about death. Johnston has recently moved to Vermont from New Jersey but before she left she spent time at a Rutgers University bus stop offering chocolates to students in exchange for them sharing their their views on death.
“After all, mortality is not restricted to just those aging, so to explore this context at Rutgers with young people was a good one for us and then the idea of an enticement like free chocolate set in,” says Johnston.
The stigma around talking about death presents a challenge.
Johnston says “We think we’re separate and so we cut ourselves off from talking about [death] in the [broader] community. I want to change that.”
Johnston isn’t the only one interested in talking about death and grief. The Date with Death Club joins other models of death education and death discussion projects like “Death Cafes” as well as services such as end-of-life companionship and transition support provided by “death doulas.”
“Community is the reason I started the Date with Death Club,” says Johnston, adding, “I provide structure for my congregations through a free, online curriculum, downloadable after filling out a form. They pick from the curriculum options the topics they prefer, like eco-death, the afterlife or medical aid for the dying, and the co-learners decide how they’ll meet.”
While Date with Death Club is structured, dogma-free, and geared for anyone, other death education and discussion groups differ in terms of target audience and the amount of structure.
For example, “Death Cafes” provide very little structure. According to the Death Cafe website “A Death Cafe is a group-directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session.” Typically hosted at a local restaurant or coffee shop, Death Cafes, specifically have “no intention of leading people to any conclusion, product or course of action.” Death Cafe, which originated in the UK, bills itself as a “social franchise.” According to their website, at a Death Cafe “people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death.”
Death Cafes have been hosted at places like The Treehouse Coffee Shop in Audobon, NJ and Cafe360 in Freehold.
For people who want more than tea and cake, there is also Death Over Dinner.
Another component of death discussion is the more in-depth work of “death doulas” who provide friends and families with support during the death of a loved one. They are not medical professionals, but they work alongside heathcare workers.
Lee, a woman from Princeton who asked that her last name be omitted so she could talk about her experiences openly, worked with a death doula. She says that after the death of her mother, the death doula was essential to her ability to process the experience.
“Here I was, feeling I had landed on this other planet, totally grief-stricken and isolated and yet she got me and drew me out. It was a level of attention I never anticipated, one given and also required from myself. She was my safe space.”
As people become aware of things like “Death Cafes” and the services death companions offer more spaces for conversations about death are being created. Johnston’s Date with Death Club took place in the local East Brunswick library, making it easy for people to attend.
Communities can also learn about death resources through member directories organized by city and state, through private doula websites and through learning conferences and talks on death and grief.
Although it will take time to set up in her new home in Vermont, Johnston says she is very likely to do more “chocolate for your thoughts” pop-ups to enhance death awareness. It is part of her commitment to mortality to facilitate inspiring death conversations.
Johnston continues, “To provide a welcoming space for people of all ages to contemplate their mortality, to normalize the topic of death, especially for those who think that they are alone and wondering or worrying about their mortality, and to still have fun doing it so conversations are much less arduous and taboo, that’s my aim!”
