Report of First Castlemaine Death Cafe
A write up of First Castlemaine Death Cafe
Sixteen attended. After opening remarks on the Death Café concept, we broke into two groups. The topics discussed included:
- Current and past personal experiences with the death and dying of relatives and friends,
- Society’s avoidance of and the “medicalisation” of death and dying (and birth!),
- A local initiative for holistic funerals and disposal of the remains,
- Reflections from one attendee who is a funeral celebrant,
- Hopes of “euphoric” and “aesthetic” deaths,
- “Conscious Ageing”,
- The concept of wakes before you die and leaving possessions,
- Humorous stories about life experiences,
- Reflections from one attendee who heads the regional palliative care services,
- End of life planning,
- Remembering and grieving.
We reconvened as a single group after about 90 minutes and had a 10-15 minute wind-up session. On a show of hands, almost all attendees expressed interest in attending more Death Café events.
One participant requested another Death Café event in two months time with the following reasoning: “I know I need to do something, I haven’t got round to it yet. I will use the future event as a spur to action.”