Death cafes help unravel fear, spark curiosity

There is really only one certainty in this life: death.

For most people, that word conjures a slew of unsettling emotions, mostly associated with grief and fear, but Shelburne resident Nick Marconi is encouraging people to instead approach their inevitable fate with positive curiosity.

Since 2014, he has helped facilitate and host a series of death cafes in Burlington — and now, in Shelburne — as a way for people to openly discuss their experiences and examine some of the root causes of why many people fear the topic of death and, more important, why it has become such a taboo discussion point in society.

Surprisingly, he has found that the conversation has a way of forging the unlikiest of friendships.

“To me, talking about death and dying is a very significant subject and experience in our lives,” he said. “I can’t think of anything more significant. If you can really be comfortable, I mean really comfortable, talking about that and going deep with that, it’s going to make the rest of the show more interesting and a little bit easier. Not dealing with it is not helpful.”

The death cafe movement began in London in 2011 with a simple premise: eat cake, drink tea and discuss all things mortality with the hope of encouraging people to make the most of their finite lives. Founder Jon Underwood adapted the idea from the “café mortel” movement that emerged in Switzerland by sociologist Bernard Crettaz. Since that time nearly 16,253 death cafes have sprung up in more than 85 countries.

“We should normalize (talking about death) so that it doesn’t become this freaky, ‘Oh, we don’t want to go there, that’s dark,’” he explained. “But it’s part of the whole existence thing, the living thing. Human beings are aware of that so it really impacts their worldview and the way they view their life.”

The group is far from a grief support group or end-of-life planning group, but more so a casual roundtable-style discussion for people to wax philosophical and bounce around ideas about some of life’s greatest unknowns: What is on the other side? Is it painful? Why are we so afraid of it?

This weekend, a dozen people gathered around the wooden table in Village Wine and Coffee’s gallery room, some Shelburne residents, some out-of-towners and ranging in age from their 80s to mid-30s, all possessing different journeys, but all finding common ground within the conversation.

What’s even more interesting is half of them came into the cafe as total strangers but by the end of the two-hour-long meeting had come to know some of each other’s greatest hardships, triumphs and life stories.

Motives for attendance varied. Some shared stories of loved ones’ passing while others came to playfully banter differing opinions about what is beyond the physical realm. While there were some somber moments, there was also a ton of laughter and fun. The meeting was guided slightly by Marconi, who tossed out a few preliminary questions, but for the most part, conversation ebbed and flowed through a variety of different topics.

For Marconi, who is an optometrist by day and philosophy enthusiast by night, the fascination with mortality started sometime when he was a teenager, and unlike many people, has stayed with him for the majority of his life.

“I have a lifelong interest in the human condition. I mean, that sounds kind of grandiose, but really I started thinking about the whole of what this was all about when I was very young,” he said. “I was a teenager and I never dropped it because I was always interested in talking about death and dying. It’s a natural thing for me.”

There was no great philosophical epiphany at the end of the meeting other than a simple thought that the world might be a better place if more people talked about death together because, as Marconi puts it, that’s what this topic really can do: bring people together.

“People are held by fear around dying and just being able to voice that and share that is unburdening in itself, and then hearing how other people also share in that is really helpful.”