Write-up of our 3rd Death Cafe Honolulu
A write up of Death Cafe Honolulu (#3)
Our 3rd Death Café Honolulu had 14 participants. We switched venues, as the one we held our first two at, the Monarch Tea Room in Na Mea Books, closed down. One of our regular attendees is on the Board of the O’ahu Cemetery, and she put us in contact with the operator. They graciously offered to host us, and we held the Café on the lanai of their chapel.
The setting was beautiful, as we overlooked the lush, tree-filled cemetery. There were plenty of fresh flowers on the graves, as it was Memorial Day weekend.
Before the Café started, the owner gave us a tour of their new crematory, and then showed us their old one. The new one is state of the art, while the old one was 100 years old. It was fascinating to see the differences.
Overall, the Death Café was a success. A recurring theme that has come up every time is advance care planning and getting your wishes in order, documented, and shared with your loved ones. People are always interested in that subject.
Also of note – moving forward, we realized we will have to serve iced tea at our events – though we will always have cake, it is way too humid here to serve hot tea outdoors!
We are still waiting to hear back if the cemetery will host us again for our 4th Death Café. Unfortunately, while the owner stayed for the event and enjoyed the conversation, he is not comfortable with the name of the event. He thinks that calling it a Death Café might sound too negative. He also was worried about some of the images on the website being controversial. While this surprised me at first, considering that he owns a cemetery and crematorium and is a 3rd generation funeral director, I guess it shouldn’t have. It is VERY conservative in Hawai’i. I wonder if any other Death Cafes have had this problem? I explained to him that we won’t change the name, and that it is part of a larger movement. If he’ll host us again, great. If not, I’ll be on the search for a new venue again.