What If We Weren't Afraid to Talk About Death?

It's a beautiful summer Sunday, the day before school starts. The Minnesota State Fair is buzzing a few miles away. Meanwhile, I'm walking alone through Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, waiting to meet thirteen strangers to talk about death.

This was my first Death Cafe.

If you haven't heard of it: Death Cafe is a simple idea that's spread to communities all over the world. No agenda, no grief therapy, no sales pitch — just people gathering over conversation to talk about mortality, so that we can make the most of our (finite) lives. There's one in the Twin Cities that meets the last Sunday of every month, and odds are there's one near you too, at deathcafe.com.

The Gathering

At the agreed-upon spot, at the agreed-upon time, there was no one. Then, seemingly all at once, fourteen of us. Our host wore a black t-shirt saying, "You are enough," welcomed the group, and asked us to share our names and why we'd come. Most people had been before. A handful of us were first-timers, and we were welcomed generously.

Then she sent us out to walk the cemetery grounds alone, or with others, before regrouping for an hour of discussion.

The Walk

As we headed out, a woman I'll call Jane struck up a conversation. She'd caught my mention of Jack's during introductions and wanted to know more. After I explained, she told me something she thinks about often on these walks: most headstones have two dates — when someone was born, and when they died — and their whole life is represented by the hyphen in between. Then she offered to let me walk the cemetery alone.

So I did. Planes passed overhead. Geese roamed the cemetery with me. “Mary Oliver wrote her famous poem ‘The Summer Day’ on a day like today” I thought to myself.

The grass was green, but barely, Minneapolis hadn't seen much rain. A concert was playing faintly in the distance. I passed the reflecting pools by the mausoleum, a genuinely stunning space if you've never seen it.

I kept coming back to Jane's hyphen. That I'm etching mine every day. Or am I?

I remembered a technique for facing fear: picture it as a spider in its web. To become less afraid, you carefully observe the web and the spider. You try to notice what you've never noticed before. Step into the web and watch what happens. What does the web do? What does the spider do?

As I walked, I imagined that death was the spider and that the cemetery was its web. And what I saw and felt when I did that was serenity. A feeling I think a lot of us are craving these days, relief from a hustling, high-speed, high-tech world.

Then I saw a woman kneeling at a headstone, one hand flat against the stone, the other flat against the ground, head down, eyes closed. Walking back to the group, I wondered to myself: “What can I do now to help the people who love me hurt a little less when I'm gone?”

The Discussion

The discussion that followed was moving. We sat outside in the shade with a cool breeze. There were stretches of silence that might have felt awkward elsewhere, but here felt like people making room for one another to speak. One person read a passage from a book that had inspired her ("The Courage to Create" by Rollo May). Others talked about conversations with ancestors long gone. Others shared stories of their dogs that died long ago and how deeply they still miss them. A few were honest about how alone they feel in this world, and the group met that honesty with compassion. No judgment, pure encouragement and empathy.

We talked about how different it is to gather in person versus online — how the internet's anonymity seems to bring out our worst instincts, while sitting face-to-face tends to bring out our best. Showing up in person costs more: a drive, a walk, a bike ride, real time and effort. But being in community with actual humans, in an actual place, is worth every bit of that cost.

What struck me most was the humility of the group. Nobody claimed to have death figured out. Everyone just listened, carefully, to what everyone else had to say.

The Invitation

As I left, I thanked the host and the people whose energy resonated with me most. I could tell they genuinely hoped I'd come back next month, and honestly, I wasn't sure I would. Not because I didn't get something out of it, but because life is hectic and I'm always trying to cram in more than fits.

The Twin Cities Death Cafe meets the last Sunday of every month, and there are Death Cafes like it happening all over the country, whether or not you're a caregiver, whether or not you're grieving. If you've never tried one, I'd encourage you to. Who knows, you might walk away like I did feeling less alone in this world, and a little less afraid of the thing that's going to happen to every single one of us.

Find a Death Cafe near you at deathcafe.com.