A Huddersfield church ran a café space to tackle those difficult questions around death and dying.
The death café at Kirkheaton Church was inspired by the Church of England’s Grave Matters initiative which has produced resources including conversation cards to help people talk about funerals, death and grief.
The vicar, the Revd Richard Steel said: “Quite a lot of the discussion revolved around funerals, including one guy who is planning to be buried in his garden with his pets, and is currently making his own coffin.
“But others felt able to share deep personal stories about loss, fear (or otherwise) of death, including a member of my congregation who has terminal cancer and has planned every detail of her funeral and is beginning to say her goodbyes and giving away personal mementoes.
“And several who attended were supporting people with terminal diagnoses and said it helped talking to each other,” he said.
Around 28 people joined the café space and the first hour used the CoE’s Grave Matters’ Discussion starter cards to get the conversations and the themes going and refreshments were supplied by the local community group, Yetton Together.
The Church of England has been helping people think about these questions for centuries. GraveTalk is a café space, organised by a local church, where people can talk about these big questions. Events have been held in locations across the country so people of all ages have gathered to talk and share their thoughts about death, dying and funeral – always in a café situation with tea and cake.
The conversation is helped along by GraveTalk conversation cards – 52 questions covering 5 key areas. If you want to organize a café space or find out more go to https://churchofenglandfunerals.org/gravetalk