Weird title.. can't you change it?

 You may have seen posters around for some Death cafés coming up in multiple locations in the region; Corryong, Mt Beauty, Beechworth, Wangaratta. If you haven’t heard about them before, it may strike you as an odd name for an event.

“Who would want to go to that?” I hear you say.

Well, plenty of people as it turns out!

The Death café provides a safe, non-judgmental space for folks to come and talk about anything relating to death, dying, grief and loss.

For the past century or so, our familiarity and comfort with these topics has gradually fallen away, owing to the advancement of health care and the ascendance of the funeral industry. Back in the day, we all knew what to do as death was a far more frequent and capricious visitor.

While we now bask in the benefits of our medical advances, the downside is that we’ve almost tricked ourselves into believing that we’ll live forever, and if not, then at least, “sometime far into the future”. The truth is, we can still be blindsided by illness and death; that wrecking ball whizzes right past our ears, or it bowls us over completely.

To live with our heads in the sand can bring far more pain and heartache than we need.

Imagine what might happen if we started being more open about the “taboo” subject of death. We might find that there’s a lot more people wanting to talk about it than we imagined and that actually starting these conversations can bring a huge amount of relief, and a peace of mind we didn’t know we needed!

Coming to a death café is a great start. We can find commonality, support and information. Who knows where else it might lead?

See your events page for details of where you can attend a death cafe and see for yourself that it's actually a lot of fun! .