Hosted by Annie Cygler

This Death Cafe has taken place

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About this Death Cafe

"Death Cafe? Well, why not?" I thought when my friend Sally texted me an invite to attend a Death cafe.... in CROWTHORNE of all places. Crowthorne is not known for its avant garde culture and alternative night cafe scene... but it was where I found myself turning up at Beatons Tea Rooms on the High Street on Monday June 13th at 7pm for the inaugural meeting of Crowthorne Death Cafe. Don't get me wrong, I am fascinated by death and dying. I work in the 'death business' and have done for twelve years, listening to people talk about death is what I do, but deliberately attending a Death Cafe with mostly strangers was a bit more intimidating.... for about 30 seconds, the time it took for me to walk from the door to a chair at a table shared by six women of all ages, all sizes and all deadly serious about why we were there, yet not quite sure where to begin. It took another 30 seconds to warm to the chilling topic of death and then there was no stopping us. There were several tables like mine and as we ate delicious cakes the questions and stories flowed as fast as the tea: How should I begin a conversation with my elderly parents about death and what they might want at their funerals? Do I even need to do that? What music might you like at your funeral? I'm going to a funeral tomorrow. What makes a good funeral? I never thought I'd have to plan my own daughter's funeral. I changed career from archeology to counselling. What do think about assisted dying? Should children go to funerals? What's a good death? What would you like your very last words to be? To whom? Where? 

Suddenly the time was up and we weren't finished yet - we'd spoken about deep things, we'd laughed and we'd cried together - this bunch of strangers united by life's great certainty - death. It's like the best book club ever,  but without the homework - you just come as yourself, with your stories, your hopes and your fears and chat and share or just be quiet and listen... it's up to you after all YOLO(You Only Live Once) and YODO (You Only Die Once). We all want to meet again to carry on these conversations, to start new ones, to tell our stories, to listen to yours.

Huge thanks to Annie for arranging it and to Paul at Beatons for hosting us - it was an amazingly vibrant evening.

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