Thursday, April 27, was the first spring day that crept toward 80 degrees in Middlebury. The sun beamed, folks lounged on porches, a wood thrush chimed in just-greening branches and the line for creemees at Sama's Café stretched along the curb. But inside the Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society, sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows didn't overheat the room where a small group of locals gathered over tea, cake and sugar cookies. They had come to talk about death. Those are the only requisites at Death Café: eat cake, drink tea and discuss dying. The aim, according to the international nonprofit's website, is to increase awareness of death "as a way of helping people make the most of their (finite) lives." The discussions have no agendas or themes, and are not intended as grief support or counseling sessions. There is no attempt to lead participants to specific conclusions or courses of action. The only consistent ingredient is cake. Death Café was founded by Jon Underwood, a web designer in Hackney, England; and his mother, Sue Barsky Reid, a Gestalt psychotherapist and counselor. It draws inspiration from the writings of Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz, who organized "cafés mortels" in the late '90s to champion open cultural dialogue about death and dying. Today, Death Café is a social franchise, meaning that people who sign up to host in their areas can organize local gatherings under the Death Café name and speak to media as affiliates. Since Underwood and Reid's first such meeting in September 2011 — in Underwood's basement — there have been nearly 4,500 Death Café events in 49 countries. Some meetings took place in Burlington this past year, at Dobrá Tea and the Fletcher Free Library. Last Thursday evening, Helen Young, a biology professor at Middlebury College; and Kate Gridley, a local artist, cohosted Middlebury's first meeting, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. "I'm interested in alternatives to death in a hospital or nursing home," said Young via phone on the afternoon before the gathering. "Death Café came up somewhere online, and I thought it was a great way to have a pretty open-ended conversation about death and dying." In Bristol, Young has been trying to start a natural burial ground — a cemetery that extends to natural habitats, such as nearby woods, without disrupting the ecosystem. It would be a place for "green burial," which allows the body to decompose…
Thursday, April 27, was the first spring day that crept toward 80 degrees in Middlebury. The sun beamed, folks lounged on porches, a wood thrush chimed in just-greening branches and the line for creemees at Sama's Café stretched along the curb. But inside the Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society, sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows didn't overheat the room where a small group of locals gathered over tea, cake and sugar cookies. They had come to talk about death. Those are the only requisites at Death Café: eat cake, drink tea and discuss dying. The aim, according to the international nonprofit's website, is to increase awareness of death "as a way of helping people make the most of their (finite) lives." The discussions have no agendas or themes, and are not intended as grief support or counseling sessions. There is no attempt to lead participants to specific conclusions or courses of action. The only consistent ingredient is cake. Death Café was founded by Jon Underwood, a web designer in Hackney, England; and his mother, Sue Barsky Reid, a Gestalt psychotherapist and counselor. It draws inspiration from the writings of Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz, who organized "cafés mortels" in the late '90s to champion open cultural dialogue about death and dying. Today, Death Café is a social franchise, meaning that people who sign up to host in their areas can organize local gatherings under the Death Café name and speak to media as affiliates. Since Underwood and Reid's first such meeting in September 2011 — in Underwood's basement — there have been nearly 4,500 Death Café events in 49 countries. Some meetings took place in Burlington this past year, at Dobrá Tea and the Fletcher Free Library. Last Thursday evening, Helen Young, a biology professor at Middlebury College; and Kate Gridley, a local artist, cohosted Middlebury's first meeting, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. "I'm interested in alternatives to death in a hospital or nursing home," said Young via phone on the afternoon before the gathering. "Death Café came up somewhere online, and I thought it was a great way to have a pretty open-ended conversation about death and dying." In Bristol, Young has been trying to start a natural burial ground — a cemetery that extends to natural habitats, such as nearby woods, without disrupting the ecosystem. It would be a place for "green burial," which allows the body to decompose…