References for Central Houston's October 2025 Death Cafe
A write up of Central Houston’s Monthly Death Cafe - October 2025
Central Houston's October 2025 Death Cafe
18 people attended this month's gathering. The conversation was fast-paced and high-energy this month, touching on a great many topics related to death and dying -- generating quite a list of resources below! I'm happy to get this out to y'all as fast as possible.
Below you can find links to various things mentioned during the dialogue.
If there is something missing from my list you'd like to add and easily share with the group, just leave a public comment in the box at the bottom of this page.
Local groups and resources
- Blazing Star Sanctuary (Katy, Texas Green Burial)
https://naturesburial.org
- Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church
https://emersonhouston.org
- Texas Out-of-Hospital Do-Not-Resuscitate (OOH-DNR) Order
https://www.hhs.texas.gov/regulations/forms/advance-directives/out-hospital-do-not-resuscitate-ooh-dnr-order
- Texas MOST form (Medical Order for Scope of Treatment)
https://dffw.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/MOST-form.pdf
Books
- The Good Death: A Guide for Supporting Your Loved One through the End of Life by Suzanne B. O’Brien
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/215750317-the-good-death
- The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61214136-the-collected-regrets-of-clover_
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52578297-the-midnight-library
- The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55120630-the-comfort-crisis
- Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696006-being-mortal
- From Being Mortal:
The five core questions to ask at the end of life: https://www.nextavenue.org/atul-gawandes-5-questions-ask-lifes-end/
1. What is your understanding of your health condition?
2. What are your fears and worries for the future?
3. What are your goals and priorities?
4. What outcomes are unacceptable to you?
5. What are you willing to sacrifice and not willing to sacrifice?
- Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John Fugelsang
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220160840-separation-of-church-and-hate
- Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life by Jessica Zitter
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31581286-extreme-measures_
- Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6900.Tuesdays_with_Morrie
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50623864-the-invisible-life-of-addie-larue
- Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson by G.I. Gurdjieff *see footnote (1)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/547608.Beelzebub_s_Tales_to_His_Grandson
- The Parable of the Good Samaritan
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010%3A25-37&version=NIV
- The Trouble With Being Born by Emil M. Cioran
specifically this quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/725179-we-do-not-rush-toward-death-we-flee-the-catastrophe
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/117564.The_Trouble_With_Being_Born
- The First and Second Great Commandments
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022%3A34-40&version=NIV
Film & TV
- Tuesdays with Morrie (1999)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0207805/
- Sliding Doors (1998)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120148/
- Last Flight Home (2022)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16377430/
- The Last Ecstatic Days (2024)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18567414/
Houston PBS members can currently watch at this link: https://www.pbs.org/video/the-last-ecstatic-days-no90tz/
Misc
- Death Doulas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_midwife
-University of Vermont Online End-of-Life Doula Professional Certificate
https://learn.uvm.edu/program/end-of-life-doula-certificate/
- Maraṇasati - Buddhist meditation practice of remembering death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara%E1%B9%87asati
- Carl Jung
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung
- Odinism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odinism_(disambiguation)
- Driving information & contract from the Alzheimer's Association https://www.alz.org/getmedia/9d7671f6-4df4-4457-a934-488185a69623/alzheimers-dementia-driving-info-contract-ts.pdf
- National Home Funeral Alliance
https://www.homefuneralalliance.org/
- Rumi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi
- Sarco pod
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarco_pod
Footnote:
(1) We have very kindly had this excerpt passed along to be included with this reference:
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson by G.I. Gurdjieff (page 1182):
“The sole means now for the saving of the beings of the planet Earth would be to implant again into their presences a new organ … of such properties that every one of these unfortunates during the process of existence should constantly sense and be cognizant of the inevitability of his own death as well as of the death of everyone upon whom his eyes or attention rests.
“Only such a sensation and such a cognizance can now destroy the egoism completely crystallized in them that has swallowed up the whole of their Essence and also that tendency to hate others which flows from it—the tendency, namely, which engenders all those mutual relationships existing there, which serve as the chief cause of all their abnormalities unbecoming to threebrained beings [human beings] and maleficent for them themselves and for the whole of the Universe.”
Looking forward to the next time,
Stephanie