Marlow Death Café aims to start 'human conversation about being mortal'

A woman is challenging the ‘taboo’ around death and dying as she prepares to help start a ‘human conversation about being mortal’ in Marlow.

Liz Rothschild is set to help run an upcoming Death Café in the town, which aims to provide a space for people to discuss the realities of bereavement and the end-of-life.

The event, co-hosted with Marlow resident Susan Wagland, offers an opportunity to discuss death and dying in a relaxed but confidential environment, Ms Rothschild said.

“It’s an opportunity to talk,” she said, adding: “But the key thing is listening.”

Since the first Death Café was held in London in 2012, they now exist across the world.

Ms Rothschild has helped run ones in Oxfordshire for more than a decade.

Meetings have no set questions or agenda – other than coffee, tea and cake – and attendees can contribute as little or as much as they might like to the conversation, Ms Rothschild said.

“What’s lovely about death cafés is there's no agenda at all – the agenda is set by what the people bring that come to it – that's the beauty of it,” she said.

“The question to them is, ‘what has brought you to a death café today?’”

Ms Rothschild, 68, runs a woodland burial service in rural Oxfordshire, and is a celebrant – a person without a religious affiliation who hosts events like weddings and funerals.

She has also written the book Outside the Box – Everyday Stories of Death, Bereavement and Life, and is running a one-woman show about death at the Oxford Playhouse in March.

Ms Rothschild said: “In my work, I see the benefit of people knowing, for example, what the wishes were of the person who’s died.

“Imagine a family that's fractured, and they don’t always see eye-to-eye, and then the mum dies.

“Two siblings think she for sure wanted to be cremated, two think she wanted to be buried – and mum never said a word. In the midst of all the agony and the pain of the loss, they’ve got this fight on their hands about which way to go, right?

“If somebody's talked about it beforehand, they've just ticked that one off, and everybody can rest safely in the fact that they know they’re doing what the person wanted.

“Similarly, if somebody is dying and nobody is admitting the fact, then it could be a lost opportunity for saying that thing you wish you’d said.”

Death cafés are a chance to talk about the sometimes ‘taboo’ subject, she said, removed from associations with religious or other aspects.

“That doesn’t mean there's an issue if you are religious, but there is no religious message,” Ms Rothschild said.

“This is just a human conversation about being mortal.”

Attendees are asked to keep discussions at the café confidential and not use second names to help protect anonymity.

The Death Café takes place at Cote Brasserie in West Street from 5pm until 6.30pm on Monday (January 19).