A local group hosting “Death Cafes” in Homer is aiming to create a safe, supportive space where people can share experiences and fears around death, without judgment. Organizer C.J. Hernley said she wasn’t sure what to expect before attending her first Death Cafe a few years ago in California, but at the urging of her neighbor, she decided to go out on a limb.
“I was like, ‘Why? Why would you go up and sit around with your box of Kleenex? Is it a crying session?’ You know, I just assumed it would be gloomy and morbid,” said Hernley. “And she told me, ‘Well, you just need to come’.”
So, she did, and while she said it was a little awkward at first, by the end of the meeting Hernley left feeling like she had 10 new friends.
“It was so fascinating to me that you sit down, you’re not discussing the weather or things like ‘What do you do for your work?’ I mean, none of that even comes up. Instead, it’s: ‘How do you feel about life and death?’ And they start every meeting with ‘What brought you to the Death Cafe today?’ So, I remember they started that little spiel going around the room and I was thinking, should I say, ‘My neighbor coerced me?’ But by the time they got to me, I was like, oh my god, I’m here because I experienced losing two siblings growing up. I went in there thinking I wouldn’t even speak, and I’m in there realizing, ‘Oh, my god, yeah, I lost my brother and my sister.”
Hernley said that the goal of the gathering is to show that discussing death isn’t morbid, but actually helps people embrace life more fully.
“It was such a unique experience to sit with everyone and hear their stories,” she said. “And you felt like you weren’t alone. You know, disasters happen to everybody, death happens to everybody.”
The concept of Death Cafes originated in Switzerland in the early 2000s when Swiss socialist and ethnologist Bernard Crettaz lost his wife to cancer. In the aftermath, he began to gather with others to eat cake and discuss death, in a practice he called “café mortel.” The modernized, widespread Death Cafe model was developed by Jon Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid, based on Crettaz’s ideas, and has spread to at least 93 countries since September 2011.
Hernley said that personal storytelling and humor help to make conversations about death less scary. She said the most important thing is creating an environment where people feel comfortable exploring their feelings about death without shame or overwhelming grief, helping encourage intergenerational conversations about death that reduce fear and stigma.
Recurring monthly on the last Thursday of the month, the next Death Cafe in Homer will be hosted at the Homer Public Library on July 24, starting at 6 p.m. in the library’s main meeting room.
