Death Cafe profile for Diana Wagner - Hospice Austin & Austin Palliative Care
Location: United States
About Diana Wagner - Hospice Austin & Austin Palliative Care:
I am a registered nurse, Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse (CHPN), Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP), and Certified Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Care Trainer (CADDCT). I currently serve as a Director of Education and Training in hospice and palliative care, where much of my work centers on end of life care, dementia, grief, and helping healthcare professionals and communities become more comfortable having conversations about death and dying.
I am passionate about bringing conversations about death back into our communities. Death is a universal human experience, yet we often avoid talking about it until we are forced to. I believe creating welcoming, judgment free spaces where people can ask questions, share experiences, listen, laugh, reflect, and simply talk about death can make it feel less frightening and less isolating.
For me, facilitating Death Cafés is an extension of that work, creating opportunities for honest human connection around a subject that touches all of us.
What brings you to Death Cafe?
My work in hospice and palliative care has shown me how often death is avoided in everyday conversation, even though it is something every one of us will experience. I have seen how much fear and uncertainty can come from not having opportunities to talk openly about death and dying.
Death Cafe offers something I strongly believe we need more of: a comfortable, nonclinical space where people can talk about death without an agenda. I am drawn to the opportunity to bring these conversations into the community, normalize talking about mortality, and create space for curiosity, reflection, connection, and even humor.
I also believe that becoming more comfortable talking about death can help us think more intentionally about how we want to live.
What would you like your legacy to be?
I would like my legacy to be found in the people I love and in how they felt when they were with me. I hope my children remember that I loved them fiercely, encouraged them to be fully themselves, and showed them that life does not have to be perfect to be meaningful.
I hope the people in my life remember laughter, honesty, deep conversations, and knowing they could come to me exactly as they were. I want to be remembered as someone who showed up, loved generously, spoke honestly, forgave easily, and was never afraid to talk about the things that really mattered.
More than anything, I hope I leave behind people who know they were deeply loved.
Thoughts for sharing:
I believe talking about death helps us live more intentionally. Death is not simply a medical event or something that happens at the end of life. It is part of being human.
Working in hospice has taught me that people rarely need the perfect words. They need honesty, presence, curiosity, and permission to talk about the things that may feel uncomfortable. I also believe there is room for laughter and humor in conversations about death. Sometimes humor is what allows us to approach something that otherwise feels too heavy.
One idea that stays with me is that talking about death does not bring it closer. It simply gives us an opportunity to understand it, prepare for it, and perhaps fear it a little less.
Ultimately, I think becoming more comfortable with our mortality can help us become clearer about what matters while we are living.
Diana Wagner - Hospice Austin & Austin Palliative Care's posts on the Death Cafe website
Death Cafe: Talk. Sip. Be Mortal. Death Cafe
Posted by Diana Wagner - Hospice Austin & Austin Palliative Care on Sept. 24, 2026, 2:52 p.m.
With Diana Wagner
Oct. 14, 2026, 6.00 p.m. - 7.00 p.m. (central)
Free
This online Death Cafe is sponsored by Hospice Austin and Austin Palliative Care, but it is not a hospice presentation, educational program, or support group. There is nothing being promoted ...