Report from Marin Death Cafe Sept 10

We had a wonderful Marin Death Cafe last evening with 43 participants plus 4 facilitators attending. 9 men and 34 women between the ages of 30 and 92 engaged in deep and authentic conversation over delicious cake and tea.

Here is some of their feedback submitted on surveys they graciously filled out afterwards:

• I enjoyed hearing the stories in our two groups and gained a bit of insight into others’ experiences
• An important service to the community
• It is refreshing to talk about my feelings about death and life.
• Reassuring, interesting, informative
• Attending did not affect my feelings about death and life but was useful to air out my thoughts
• Communal, interesting, safe
• If someone asked me if they should go to a Death Café I would say “By all means, go!”
• Death Café’s bring my feelings about death and life to the surface.
• Deep, loving, supportive”
• I love hearing people’s stories. We all have thoughts and feelings about life and death
• I liked the “free form”, an organic process as it’s such a rich subject
• Nice to have a venue where people don’t roll their eyes or put their fingers in their ears when I want to discuss death
• Comfortable, innovative, thought-provoking
• If someone told you they were thinking of going to a Death Café, what would you tell them? “Do it!”
• Consider a theme question? E.g. Do you have a bucket list?
• The small group discussion made me feel more comfortable and open
• Thoughtful, sad, safe
• It’s a unique experience but safe and comfortable to talk about life and death
• So nice to have a venue like this – free and public, thank you Nancy and staff. I would like to come again to continue expanding my feelings about death
• My feelings about death were not affected – not enough time – but my thoughts were expanded – more things to think about
• I was perfectly comfortable with strangers
• The structure of small groups after the welcome talk went well. It would have been nice to stay in one group longer. It may not have been necessary to break up at all.
• Nancy did a great job explaining there is no agenda – grass roots movement
• Yummy food – great variety
• Interesting, informative
• Would tell a friend “Absolutely, go”
• Thanks again
• Great idea
• Good conversation – a start
• Maybe a facilitator in each group just to get us going
• Perhaps an outgrowth of the death café is to facilitate “communities” of people to care for each other in sickness and through death
• It gave me a chance to explain my feelings about death and life
• Enlightening, refreshing, thought-provoking
• If someone was thinking about going to a Death Café, what would you tell them? “Do it! It’s well worth the time and effort”
• This was my first Death Café, but it won’t be my last.
• Sharing fears and worries is good
• Stay in same group for the whole time. Can develop intimacy and open up
• It was very good. I was very touched by some of the stories
• If facilitated – just to keep discussion going or encourage people to talk. Good to have 2 group experiences – perhaps 1st one shorter to “warm up” then longer one
• Interesting, promising, thought-provoking
• If someone asked you about going to a death café, what would you say? “Go! It’s not morbid – we all need to open up about this.”
• Would like to have a few more sessions (not indefinite number) to really get into the issues