Death Cafe Oakland

(Editor’s note: The following is from Bill Palmer, founder of Death Cafe Oakland and an executive leadership coach and consultant specializing in diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism. His website is www.coachbillpalmer.com. — KTB)

The man knelt beside his wife’s hospital bed as she lay unconscious, dying. He whispered in her ear “I love you. I love you. Don’t leave me.”  Miraculously, days later, she awoke and weeks later, her cancer went into remission. Years passed, and her cancer returned, more aggressive than ever. She told him as once again she approached death, “I never forgave you for saying that; I was ready, and you pulled me back.”

Such are the stories told in Death Cafes.

In Hackney, East London, in 2011 a man named John Underwood and his mother, Sue Barsky Reid, led the very first Death Cafe. Based on the work of the Belgian philosopher Bernard Crettaz, the idea behind Death Cafes is simple: people gather to discuss death in a supportive atmosphere in which their thoughts, worries, fears, wonderings and musings on deaths are welcome. I’ve led 98 of them as of October of 2020. Every one of them is the same, and every one of them is different.

Since 2011, over 114,000 Death Cafes have been held in 73 countries. Death Cafes are a “social enterprise,” meaning that no one is profiting financially from them, there is no agenda set by Death Cafe’s leaders, no book, plan of action, course of treatment, no philosophy or theory that guides them other than offering a safe place for people to talk about death in the face of a cross-cultural taboo: “Don’t talk about it,” “You’re being morbid,” “I don’t want to think about it.”

In 2005, I witnessed the death of my mother. Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer a year before that, and suffering a stroke six months later, she finally succumbed after breaking her hip during Hurricane Wilma. She and a caretaker waited 24 hours for telephone service to be restored before EMTs could arrive. She died a few days later, having declined medical advice to have her hip surgically repaired and begin rehabilitation. “I’ve had enough, I’m ready to go,” she said and I quite agreed. She was 87.

After her diagnosis, she became a home hospice patient, and then, near the time of her death, entered a physical hospice. As I reflected on her death, I realized that her caretakers, and then those who cared for her in hospice, had performed a life-affirming service to her as well as to myself and other family members. They certainly didn’t do it for the money; they did it because they knew at some profound level that caring for the dying was a noble and righteous calling, ever the more so in the darkness of the social taboos cloaking how we die.

I wanted to in some way give back, at least indirectly, to these people, and in a direct way to chip away at the social taboo that keeps death, dying and how we do so largely hidden. I had no medical platform to do so, no special knowledge of the physical or metaphysical processes of death, but my professional work is executive coaching and leading groups. When I heard about Death Cafe, it seemed like a perfect fit. And it was.

It’s been a rich, sometimes surprising and always touching experience. Over the course of 98 Death Cafes in Oakland, about 2000 people have attended.  Some of what has stood out for me:

• Many attendees claim not to be afraid of death but are terrified of dying—losing capabilities of all sorts—mobility, vision, hearing, lucidity, as well as experiencing extreme pain.
• Most are unaware of the California End of Life Options Act that allows access to medical aid in dying.
• Many have what I call a “Disney view” of their death. A fully conscious and pain free individual lies in a stately bed, in a tastefully decorated, dramatically lit room, surrounded by loving family and friends. Absent are ventilators, monitors, IV rigs, catheters and crash carts.  After saying something wry or humorous or perhaps even profound, the dying person slips calmly into whatever awaits us after death. Needless to say, this is not how most of us die.
• There is always laughter at a Death Cafe. Newcomers are always surprised and delighted by this.
• A few people report that despite everything they have learned and experienced, they don’t actually believe they are going to die.
• Many people say things like “I just can’t accept that I will simply disappear from the earth; that even if there is an afterlife, I won’t be present here and that shakes me to my core.” They appear to be comforted and a bit confused when reminded of the fact they were absent from the world for millennia before they were born.

When Death Cafe Oakland began in 2013, the large majority of those who attended were over 50. For most of that time, the political implications of death went unnoticed or at least unspoken. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a new reckoning with America’s struggle with racism, conversations at Death Cafe Oakland have grown from individual expressions of thoughts and feelings about death to discussions of how these fit into a larger, systemic analysis. More and more people under 40 have attended as they confront the realization that climate change, a broken health care system and racialized capitalism are bringing the presence of death closer and closer to them despite their youth.

Yes, how we die is in some part the result of personal health and lifestyle choices we make, but the more powerful determinants are race, gender, economics and government policies that place the value of capital over the value of life. The US government response to the COVID-19 pandemic is ample proof of that.

Death Cafes are not the solution to our systemic problems, but they are a meaningful place for individuals to begin to see their thoughts, feelings and questions about death in a larger, community context.

To learn more about Death Cafes, the organization and how to run one, click here.