Have You Heard Of “death Café? ” It’s An Interesting Idea …

Death has become a taboo subject in many societies, over many periods of time. We do not have to go far, it is still like that in today’s society. At the same time, we feel death very differently when it happens far away and when it happens near us, when there is reality and when there is fantasy. A death café is a place where we can talk about our fears.

How many deaths are there in a Hollywood movie? In many of these, everyone dies at once and the main character may even brag about it. At the same time, if you are having a hard time or want to talk about death in real life, there are many who respond with silence.

Not long ago, a psychiatrist in Argentina left a comment about this on an online forum. He said he was getting more and more patients who could not get over the pain of losing someone they loved. This professional person was surprised. It used to be people’s families and the surroundings around them that helped with this. Nowadays, a much larger number of people have to go to a doctor to find someone who will listen to them when they want to talk about loss.

No matter how uncomfortable we may think it seems, there seems to be no place or no willingness to talk about such a normal thing as death. Many people have no choice but to live through the pain alone. If they bring it on the field, people say they should not think about it. Or they try to “distract” them to help them through the pain.

Death café, a logical idea

It all started with an idea that the Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz had. This academic was a professor at the University of Geneva in 1989. He organized an exhibition called “Deadly Relief”, and received a very positive response. The main conclusion was that there were many young people who wanted to talk about death, but they had no way to do it.

Therefore, later in 2004, Crettaz himself organized the first meeting at a death café which they called “Cafe Mortel”.  The goal was to have a place where people could talk about death. 250 people attended the meeting. They ate some small dishes and then talked about the subject for more than 2 hours. Afterwards there was an exchange of ideas. The only rule was that they had to be sincere and respect the attitudes of others.

The idea became such a huge success that others copied it right away. “Death cafes” began to appear in different parts of the world. There are now 4403 in total in 48 different countries, on all continents.

Why do we have to talk about death?

Many people think that talking about death means raising a bitter issue for no reason. This argument, rather than coming up with a real motive, expresses fear and anxiety that steers away from confrontation. Instead, they want to hide it under the rug. There is nothing more real in life than death. And nothing so inevitable. Every human being will go through it and will see someone they love walk away. A death café can help us take into account the need to talk about death.

Talking about death can create some anxiety first. This is because we use words to approach an unknown territory. But if you open your mind to the subject and resist the fear, it becomes more natural over time. For anyone living with an illness, or close to someone who has it, addressing it directly can be very soothing. It creates peace and strength in the phase where death is a reality.

For healthy people who see death as something distant, this type of conversation can also be very helpful. Death can be a taboo. To talk about it in a death café means to learn to accept the thought without so much fear.

This becomes a very valuable tool when our or others’ lives are in the last phase. Talking about it does not create more pain, it prevents it. It also gives a greater meaning and value to life itself.

Emma Kenny, a well-known British psychologist, sums it up by saying, “We spend a lot of time pushing death far away from us and thinking that it’s just something that affects other people. One of the things people have the hardest time realizing is how fragile life is. ” The paradox here is that by realizing that fragility, we can find a meaningful worldview that will help us see much of the beauty that is in life itself. For when we symbolically remove ourselves from death, we lose sight of this.