(Aron Visuals)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

choosing not to ignore death

Death Cafés address changing global landscape amid COVID-19

Jul 12, 2020 | 1:15 PM

Death isn’t an ideal subject matter for most people to discuss with strangers over tea and cake, but two central Alberta women say the topic is as appropriate now as it’s ever been.

They say Death Cafés are the perfect venue, but what they entail is likely a foreign subject to many.

“I’ve been doing them in Red Deer since 2012, and more recently in Rocky Mountain House and at Red Deer College. Originally, I had attended a hospice course in Calgary, and a friend I’d visited sent me a link to this Death Café. I looked at it for a long time, and couldnt really understand it at first,” admits Jean Bota, a Red Deer County councillor.

“At the Death Café, we talk about death, it’s implications, and maybe the death of what you felt was normal, or how it is someone wants to die and what their funeral could look like.”

But in 2020, a Death Café can serve the purpose of expressing how we feel about the death of society as we knew it pre-COVID-19.

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“There’s so much uncertainty right now,” says Lois Faris, who earned a Masters Degree from the U of A at the age of 56 in 1986. “So how do we live with that uncertainty? We’re not so good at living with that, and one of the strategies is to talk to as many people as much as possible.”

At your typical Death Café event, attendees show, and yes, enjoy tea and cake, and then sit in groups of three to five people sharing their personal stories or questions.

“We want people to think about a Death Café in a positive light of course, but people need to talk about the fact that things are not going back to the same normal,” says Bota, who has degrees in sociology and psychology. “Also, we’re not finished with this pandemic and a lot of people are missing that connection, be it with community, family or their personal routine. Talking about death in this way is very relevant right now.”

Faris says transformation is a word she’s hearing quite often.

“Everything we’ve known is in question now. We’re sort of losing a familiar world, so what we’re going to create isn’t just a revised version, itll be something quite new,” she says.

Bota, who says we shouldn’t just ignore death, is hoping to host the next Death Café event in Red Deer sometime in late July or August. They are free to attend and all ages are welcome.

More information on Death Cafés is on Facebook and at DeathCafe.com.