What Is a Death Café?

When it comes to conversation killers, death is right up there with politics and religion; but the subject of death doesn't have to be scary.  Conversations about death can be important to achieving a state of comfort with your own mortality, this makes planning and decision making around the subject much easier. If you are looking for a way to have these conversations in a safe and comfortable place a Death Café can provide a structure to talk about death with like-minded individuals in a group setting.

The death café has its origins with Swiss Sociologist and Anthropologist Bernard Crettaz who organized his first “Café Mortel” in 2004. In 2011 the Death Café idea was developed into its current model by Jon Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid who founded the website deathcafe.com. The website was created to detail how to run your own Death Café. The Death Cafe is a social franchise, which means that anyone can operate a one in their location. Use of the name is permitted so long as the hosts post the event to the Death Café website and follow the guidelines and principles of the franchise.

Official Death Cafés should always be non-profit, held in an accessible, respectful, and confidential environment and have no intent to promote any specific conclusion, course of action or product. The intention should be to have an open, group directed conversation in order to “Increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” Providing refreshments (particularly cake) is considered an extremely important element of the death café model.

Since 2011 there have been 18247 Death Cafes in 90 different countries that operate under the franchise’s rules. Death Cafe's relaxed, social atmosphere can help remove the taboo of speaking about death and clarify for participants their own wishes for their passing. We hope that through this overview we have given you a good idea of what a Death Café is.

Maple Ridge Funeral Chapel and Crematorium, based in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, has been providing compassionate funeral services on the Lower Mainland for over 60 years. We have deep roots in the community and take great pride in caring ethics and exemplary service. If you have any questions about this article or would like to talk to us about funeral services, please call us at (604) 463-8121.