By Jen Christensen, CNN
Atlanta (CNN) — After a potluck supper, a short guided meditation and a quick lesson in resistance singing, a couple dozen people made their way to a quiet room at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta. As a choir warmed up downstairs, they gathered – some strangers, some friends – to discuss a topic that’s normally off-limits: death.
“I have had a lot of interaction and contact with death in my adult life. And there are not really many places where I feel comfortable talking about any of that,” one woman dressed in black, who asked CNN not to publish her name, told the group. “Oftentimes, if I have a friend or someone over for coffee and I bring death up, they’ll take the subject off someplace else so that it’s happier.”
“I don’t really regard death as an unhappy topic,” she said, prompting several nods from the group. “It’s just, you know, I find it a necessary conversation.”
This “necessary conversation” didn’t happen among funeral directors or grief counselors. This group – which included women with graying hair and comfortable OnCloud running shoes, a doctoral student scribbling in a tiny notebook and men wearing office casual chinos – were talking death over tea and vegan strawberry cookies in a gathering commonly called a Death Cafe.
Death Cafes are popping up in churches, coffee shops and even historic cemeteries across the country.
Often advertised on Facebook or through other social media, the free meetings are open to everyone and focus on informal, unstructured conversation about mortality.
For such a weighty topic, laughter often punctuated the wide-ranging conversations at the two Death Cafes I visited in Atlanta. People leaned in and listened intently as others spoke with sincerity.
Topics varied, and so did opinions, but all comments were welcome.
Some admitted to feeling denial that their death would come. Some didn’t even like to say the word “death.”
Still others said they envied people who had a belief system that guaranteed life after death. One woman leaned on her walker as she spoke warmly but quietly, saying it didn’t matter what happened next.
“I mean, we’re living things, and living things take their time as they go away to dust,” Marycallie Laxton said. “I don’t know what happens to our spirit, our energy. We are electric beings. So, does the light just turn off?
“I don’t care,” she answered her own question with a laugh. “I don’t care.”
Some attendees discussed harrowing near-death experiences and how motivated they felt afterward to live life with more vigor. And in what may be a sign of the times, more than one person talked about being terrified as they witnessed a shooting.
“It was so close – it had to be no more than 100 yards – and people started stampeding and running. It was one of the scariest moments of my life, and I remember thinking, ‘why? How come that doesn’t hit me?’ ” said Rosemary Kimble, a Death Cafe host.
Some conversations took a more esoteric turn. Many mentioned being with dying parents or siblings who started talking to people who weren’t there. Several said their loved ones saw long-dead parents or friends who seemed ready to welcome them.
“It’s different every time,” said Kimble, a soft-spoken death doula, also known as an end-of-life doula. Death doulas provide holistic, emotional and sometimes spiritual support to people and their families during the dying process. “With death, there’s an