When the Death Café was brought up in class, I was quick to assume that I would feel uncomfortable during this event. Once the talk started, my assumptions were disproven wrong right away. Eliza Chandler mentioned that Death Cafés must be accessible, respectful, and confidential. The hosts must also serve tea and cake which is meant to provide comfort and hospitality. This event made talking about death, which may not be a comfortable topic for many, as comfortable as other topics.
Just before we went off to our smaller groups, Esther Ignagni had mentioned the ways in which disability entangles with death. One of the three points that she discussed was the unlivable life where she mentions that sometimes we view disability as undesirable or uninhabitable. This reminded me of the article that Eliza and Esther wrote together called, “Strange beauty: Aesthetic possibilities for desiring disability into the future”. In the beginning of the reading, it was suggested that it is easier to imagine the end of the world instead of a life with a disability. This was in relation to how the world and the media portrays disability. This connects with the idea of an unlivable life that Esther mentioned.
“Me Before You,” a movie that was mentioned in class, popped into my head during this discussion. In this movie, the main character is paralyzed and struggles with this throughout the movie. He is told that his wish to die will come true if he promised to live just 6 more months. His family was hoping that in this six months he will find a reason to keep living. In the end, he still wanted to die as he believed that he would not be able to provide the happiness that his spouse deserved. The idea that disability is an unlivable life when it came to death was represented in this movie.
During our small group talks we went through a series of questions. One question that was asked was, “what happens after you die?” which definitely scared me. This is a conversation I always use to have with one of my closets friend who identifies as atheist. I identify as Catholic but I still want to know what people believe will happen after they die. Even though I find his interesting, I still find this extremely scary cause I still do not know 100% what happens after death. Thinking back to the movie “Me Before You”, I was thinking about how this character was okay with death. Did they believe that there was an afterlife or was he so determined on his goal to die that he did not care about what happened after death? Would an idea of an afterlife change his mind?
In the end, we just discussed how we felt during the small group talks. People had mentioned that death is not a common topic in conversations but they were glad that they were able to connect with others. Personally, the Death Café was definitely an experience that I would do again but death is still a topic that I still would avoid. I do view death a little differently after the Death Café.