The Okanagan Valley Death Café Series is set for four Sunday afternoons in April.
At a Death Café, people, often strangers, gather to drink tea or coffee and discuss death. Death Cafes are an opportunity to have an honest and respectful conversation about death. They are a group-directed, confidential discussion of death with no expectations, no agendas, and no judgments. A Death Café is not a grief support or counseling session; it is a time of sharing and learning.
End of Life Doula Alison Moore, Shamanic Practitioner Sue Berlie, and End of Life Doula, Claudette Bouchard will facilitate.
Alison Moore said part of her desire to become an End of Life Doula came from having spent time bedside, as her mother neared the end of her life. “There are things that I would have liked to have thought about or had conversations with her about to make her end of life more comfortable. That could be one of the impetuses for people who attend a Death Café, or, they may have gotten a diagnosis. Even if you don’t have a terminal diagnosis. If you’ve had a biopsy, you’ve lived in that fear of ‘what if?’”
“When we actually embrace this fact of life, which is death, we can actually live a much fuller life,” claimed Moore. “It takes the bucket list and puts it in a whole new realm of people acting on the things that they’re inspired to do and build relationships or mend relationships. It puts a silver lining everything because you’re living more fully and more consciously.”
Locations:
More than 5,900 Death Cafés have been held in 55 countries since September 2011. Close to 100 people attended in the Okanagan last year.