Death Cafe profile for Amicus_Mortis
Location: United States
https://linktr.ee/Amicus_Mortis
About Amicus_Mortis:
I’m Kari Ann Forbush, founder of Amicus Mortis, a death-positive care practice rooted in radical compassion, lived experience, and the unwavering belief that both life and death deserve our full presence.
With a background that spans nearly three decades in healthcare, caregiving, care coordination, and systems leadership, I specialize in helping individuals, families, and organizations navigate the profound transitions that come with aging, dying, grief, and care work. I started my career in 1997 as a Certified Nursing Assistant—and every role since has deepened my commitment to ensuring dignity, humanity, and beauty at every stage of the journey.
As an End-of-Life Doula (also called a death doula or soul midwife), I offer holistic, non-medical support during the dying process. My services include:
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Benevolent Touch: Gentle, intentional contact to bring comfort, reduce fear, and restore connection
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Allaying of Fears: A safe space for raw, honest conversations about mortality and meaning
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Living Funeral Coordination: Planning meaningful gatherings that allow people to be celebrated before they’re gone
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Legacy Projects: Story-sharing, guided memory work, and practical support to help individuals leave something behind that matters
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Swedish Death Cleaning: Compassionate assistance in decluttering and organizing with intention and love
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Mindfulness & Breathwork: Techniques for grounding, calming, and finding peace in the midst of uncertainty
But my work doesn’t end there.
Through Amicus Mortis, I also partner with care organizations to:
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Design and repair care systems that work in real life—not just on paper
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Train and empower caregivers through scenario-based skills days, role-play modules, and professional development programs
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Offer ongoing support through online education, coaching, and hands-on mentorship
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Respond quickly to staffing, morale, and workflow challenges with actionable, compassionate solutions
My trainings are designed to meet caregivers where they are—offering both the “how” and the “why” behind confident, respectful care. I believe that presence is a skill. And I teach it like one.
I also host the Amicus Mortis Death Café, a recurring virtual and in-person space where people can talk openly about death, dying, grief, caregiving, and what it means to live well until the very end. These aren’t morbid conversations—they’re soul-nourishing ones.
People often say I bring both levity and reverence to this work. I consider that the highest compliment.
Whether I’m coordinating a vigil, training a team, helping a caregiver find their footing, or creating a legacy scrapbook with someone facing their final days—I show up with my full self. Messy bun, clipboard, open heart, and all.
Let’s connect if you’re looking for someone who isn’t afraid of hard things—and knows how to hold them gently.
What brings you to Death Cafe?
I come to the Death Café not because I’m obsessed with death, but because I believe we are all quietly craving a place where we can talk about it without whispering.
What brings me here is the same thing that brings me to a bedside, to a Zoom training, to the hand of a dying client—it’s the deep knowing that something sacred happens when we speak the unspeakable. When we say, "I’m scared," or "I miss them," or "I’m not ready," and someone responds with, "Me too."
I’ve been a caregiver most of my life. I’ve folded towels next to grieving daughters and filed nails while holding back my own tears. I’ve coordinated vigils, held space for last breaths, and walked families through the slow unspooling of goodbye. I’ve witnessed the collateral beauty that death can bring—the honesty, the tenderness, the wild permission to love big and let go.
The Amicus Mortis Death Café is a space where we don’t need to fix anything. We don’t need to know all the answers. We just get to be people. Curious, confused, grieving, laughing people—talking about the one thing that unites us all.
I host these gatherings because I believe that talking about death actually brings us closer to life.
That naming the hard things makes them less heavy.
And that we deserve somewhere to set it all down—without judgment, agenda, or shame.
So that’s what brings me here.
To talk. To listen.
To make the world a little softer, one awkward, honest, beautiful conversation at a time.
What would you like your legacy to be?
I don’t need statues.
I don’t need my name on a building.
But I’d like to know that the people I walked beside felt less alone.
That in the mess and mystery of it all,
someone remembered the way I sat with them in silence
or made them laugh at the edge of something hard.
I want my legacy to be a trail of softened shoulders—
people who finally exhaled because they didn’t have to pretend they were fine.
I want it to be caregivers who stand a little taller
because someone told them their work was sacred.
I want it to be daughters who dared to say I love you one more time
because they realized it wasn’t too late.
I want my legacy to be systems that work,
trainings that matter,
and conversations that invite people to stop whispering about death.
I want to be remembered not for how I died,
but for how I showed up—
clipboard in one hand, chocolate in the other,
ready to hold space and ask the question:
“What would make this moment more bearable?”
And I hope someone someday says,
“She made things easier.
Softer.
More human.”
That’s enough legacy for me.
Thoughts for sharing:
What I know is this:
Death isn’t the opposite of life.
It’s the thread that runs through it—quietly, constantly, reminding us to pay attention.
Most people don’t need to be rescued from dying.
They need to be witnessed in it.
They need to be seen—fully—as who they are, not who they were.
Grief doesn’t follow a map.
It arrives like a tide, knocks the breath out of you, then recedes just long enough for you to make a sandwich.
Sometimes it shows up as sobbing.
Sometimes as silence.
It all counts.
Presence is the most powerful medicine we have.
You don’t need to know the right words.
You just need to stay.
To hold a hand.
To breathe when they can’t.
To fold towels while they cry.
Talk about death often enough, and life starts to taste different.
Warmer. Richer. More fragile.
The toast is golden.
The light through the window hits just right.
Someone is humming in the next room.
Curiosity is the antidote to fear.
Ask questions.
Even the hard ones.
Especially the hard ones.
And remember this:
You don’t have to do this alone.
It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to laugh.
It’s even okay to do both at the same time.
There’s no wrong way to die.
Only the chance to do it on your terms.
With dignity. With softness. With someone beside you who isn’t afraid to stay.
Contact Amicus_Mortis
Amicus_Mortis's posts on the Death Cafe website
Death Cafe: Online Amicus Mortis' Death Cafe San Jose
Posted by Amicus_Mortis on Oct. 22, 2025, 6:42 p.m.
With Kari Ann Forbush
Nov. 19, 2025, 7.00 p.m. - 8.30 p.m. (CST)
Free
I created the Amicus Mortis Death Cafe because too many of us are quietly carrying questions about death—and no place to set them down.
I’ve worked in end-of-life ...
With Kari Ann Forbush
Nov. 26, 2025, 7.00 p.m. - 8.30 p.m. (CST)
Accepts donations
With Kari Ann Forbush
Oct. 22, 2025, 7.00 p.m. - 8.30 p.m. (CST)
Free
I created the Amicus Mortis Death Café because too many of us are quietly carrying questions about death—and no place to set them down.
I’ve worked in end-of-life ...