Write up of Manly NSW Death Cafe

A write up of Manly NSW Death Cafe

By mknight

Our June Death Café welcomed both regular and new attendees to our familiar locale, the Creative Space in Manly Library, and as usual, death was a hot topic.  The conversation flowed from the moment people settled themselves into their chairs until it came time to leave, with all of us wondering where the time had gone, and wishing we could keep chatting.

It never ceases to amaze me why people come to the Death Café, meaning the journey they have taken in life and the experiences that have shaped their world view and their personal belief systems.   “It bothers me, that we can’t use the word ‘death’ in conversation”, “I never went to funerals as a child … it was all hell, fire and brimstone … the fear of not knowing about death created a veil of secrecy”, “Working in the area used to be a vocation, now it’s a career path”. 

These were just some of the comments shared and discussed which invited us to reflectively engage with one another, as were the names of relevant authors writing in the field of death and dying.  Peter Fenwick for example, who notes that a long dying can give people time to think about the afterlife and make peace with the present, and Ilia Delio, who philosophically discusses what she terms, a God shift, in her book The Not-Yet-God.  All in all, it was a wonderfully warm and lively Death Café, and as always, I’ll be counting the days until our next one.

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