2019-11-23 New Scientist

38 | New Scientist | 23 November 2019

LIL

LIA

N^ S

UW

AN

RU

MP

HA

/AF

P^ V

IA^ G

ET
TY
IM

AG

ES

I

F YOU planted an apple tree in the ground

where your mum had been composted,

would you eat the apples?” It isn’t a question

you hear every day. But that’s the whole point

of a death cafe: to get people talking about

something we typically choose to ignore.

I had come to the end of the line, the London

Underground’s District Line, to get my first

taste of the experience. Fuelled by tea and cake,

the conversation meandered from powers

of attorney and whether a sudden death is

better than a terminal illness to living wills

and biodegradable burials – hence the apples.

But I wasn’t here to think about what to do

with my mother. The assignment was to

embrace the end of my own life.

Honestly, it felt a bit daft to begin with: I’m 37

and, as far as I know, in good health. As it turns

out, though, that first visit to a death cafe was

the start of a brief journey that would open my

eyes – not only to what I can do to prepare, and

the adventures my cadaver might enjoy, but

also to how the very act of contemplating

death can improve my life.

We are all going to die, and we know it.

Yet people don’t generally think about death,

never mind discuss it. That might be because

it is far removed from most of us. In the

West, death is outsourced: the dying itself is

medicalised, while the aftermath is sanitised

and stage-managed. Or it might be the result of

deep-rooted fear. According to the influential

“terror management theory”, a desire to

transcend death is the driving force behind

all manner of human behaviours, from art

to belief in the afterlife.

Either way, brushing it under the carpet

isn’t doing us any good, says psychologist

Mireille Hayden, co-founder of Gentle Dusk,

which seeks to lift the taboo around discussing

death. “It tends to isolate people facing death

or bereavement because nobody knows

how to talk to you,” she says. “It also makes

it difficult for your relatives when the time

comes because in most cases the family have

never discussed what the dying person wants.”

Take back control

Above all, our inability to confront death

means we lose control over one of the most

significant events we will face. For instance,

although some 70 per cent of people in the

UK say they would prefer to die at home,

only 24 per cent get that wish fulfilled. That

might help explain the increasing demand for

end-of-life doulas, people who are trained to

support those who are dying and their families.

Hayden is one. The services she provides range

Prepare to die

It’s never too soon to

start contemplating

your own demise,

finds Daniel Cossins

from companionship and advice on pain relief

to helping people with terminal illnesses make

video messages for their children.

When I ask what I can do, she says the first

step is to complete an “advance care plan”. The

template she gives me asks how I would like to

be cared for in old age, where I would prefer to

die and what is important to me in those final

days. I find it hard to engage. I suspect I am

failing to manage my terror. But then I reach

the question about what I want to do with my

lifeless body, and I’m keen to find out more.

Until recently, there were just two main

options: burial in a cemetery or cremation.

Now, people are waking up to a world of

possibilities. You can be made into a firework,

a diamond or an artificial reef, for instance,

or float gently towards space beneath a helium

balloon. Such alternatives are certainly

flamboyant, says Fran Hall, CEO of the Good

Funeral Guide, an independent, non-profit

A teenager muses

on mortality at a

Bangkok death cafe

MA

RIA

IO

NO

VA-

GR

IBI

NA

“