New lively discussion group: The Death Café in Belmont

This was the church’s second Death Café, a seemingly-contradictory lighthearted and often humorous discussion group with an aim to “help people make the most of their (finite) lives,” according to the social franchise’s website. Almost 19,000 cafés have been held around the world, creating space for people to grapple with the unknown and share their beliefs, fears and experiences without judgment.

“There is this magical thinking that if we don’t talk about death, and we don’t think about it, maybe it won’t happen,” said co-host Jim Van Buskirk, a retired public librarian from San Francisco. “But that’s not the case.”

Discussion around death does not need to be morbid, Van Buskirk said. The café can help people become more comfortable with the concept and put them at ease, he said. 

Cake and tea, an intrinsic part of the Death Café, definitely helps to accomplish this, Van Buskirk said.

The first Death Café was held by Jon Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid in London in 2011. They hosted events in coffee shops, people’s homes and cemeteries, and created a guide for people to run their own cafés, which quickly spread around the world. Since their inception, Death Cafés have been held in 90 countries.

Van Buskirk attended a Death Café in the East Bay around 10 years ago, he said. He began to practice gratitude more frequently and liked how exploring death made him feel more present in life, he said. Since then, he has hosted cafés around the Bay Area.

A longtime friend of co-host Pastor Jim Mitulski, Van Buskirk first brought the discussion to the Congregational Church of the Peninsula in January. Although held in the church, the café is not religiously affiliated and is open to anyone.

Van Buskirk likes to begin his Death Cafés by shifting the energy with a poem, he said. As the older adults found their seats with a slice of Lunardi’s cake in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, he recited Mary Oliver’s “When Death Comes.”

“I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: What is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? … When it’s over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement.”

From then on, the room was a blank canvas: Concealed between four beige walls, a few sky-blue splatters peeking through the windows, the conversation could go in any direction.

Death Cafés begin with a single instruction and require no further facilitation, Van Buskirk said. Attendees introduce themselves to the group one at a time, and explain why they have come to the café. 

Some are dealing with the recent or upcoming death of a loved one. Perhaps they are struggling to confront their own morality. Or maybe they are curious about what happens next.

“Even as a pastor, it’s all a mystery to me,” Mitulski said. “People might be used to religion where they are told what to do or what to think. I don’t want to participate in that.”

“My role is to hold hands with the person who is dying. And say a prayer to bring them comfort, not judgment,” Mitulski said.

In his 20s and 30s, during the AIDS epidemic, Mitulski pastored a gay church in San Francisco’s Castro District. More than 500 members of his church died, and everyone around him was confronting death, he said.

The overwhelming narrative was that the condition was a punishment from God for being gay, Mitulski said, and many in the community were not in contact with their parents to support them.

“The way we coped with it was to talk about death, to push through our silence and reluctance. And it helped a lot to make it more manageable,” Mitulski said. 

In all his work during and since the crisis, Mitulski noticed that dying people are far more interested in talking about death than the people around them, he said. However, they often don’t, because they know it might upset those people, he said. This leaves them with no one to talk to.

Many participants in the Death Café spoke about pulling away when their loved ones were dying because they refused to deal with the situation. They reflected on what they could have done differently, as well as how they’ve changed since.

Some shared near-death experiences, others recalled the moment a loved one died. Many took solace in their stories’ similarities. At the end of the session, before the lively discussion came to a close, each participant shared a word: camaraderie, reassurance, calming and warm, to name a few.

“I think we, as individuals, spend a lot of time, probably unconsciously, keeping the thought of death at bay,” Van Buskirk said. “If we bring it in, I think we can become comfortable with it. It might get less difficult.”