As a Glasgow native, Jenny Watt has been one of the leaders of a strange but crucial grassroots uprising since early 2022. She’s been organizing death cafés all over the city. There, she welcomes all to talk about death directly—a topic that, like the pandemic, many would like to avoid and ignore. Watt’s work is a depathologized space in which to process realities of mortality. This method opens up space for grappling with how death affects life.
The idea for death cafés started in London back in 2011, and the idea of open, inclusive death discussions has spread like wildfire throughout the United Kingdom and beyond. There are about 3,794 death cafés registered around the country. In Scotland, you will find dozens of them, clustered especially around urban hubs like Glasgow and Edinburgh. This rapidly developing trend stresses a deeper recognition that we need to engage more honestly with death.
Watt’s journey started during the COVID-19 pandemic when she experienced her first virtual death café. Little did she know, she wasn’t going to have the opportunity to process any personal loss during this time. She soon realized just how important it was to talk about such a raw topic. “Whatever people want to talk about, nothing is off limits,” she asserts.
Watt opened her own death café in Glasgow’s Battlefield neighborhood. Since then, she’s witnessed a wide range of participants address various facets of grief and death. That’s because the majority of people who join us are in some stage of their own grief journey. One of those is our own Nicola Smith. To this end, she makes time for two or three nights a week to host conversations at death cafés. Smith believes that modern society’s increasing reliance on hospice care has contributed to the topic of death becoming more taboo among younger generations.
“It’s such an intrinsic part of our life and living, and yet we don’t talk about it,” Smith remarks. She brings out in a very big way an essential point — we don’t talk about death. This lack of dialogue further isolates so many in their experiences.
Spencer Mason, another regular attendee, shares his perspective on the significance of these discussions: “I think the more we discuss death then surely the more appreciative you become of life.”…he comes because he’s dealing with the end of life care of someone he loves. Beyond the existential appreciation he encourages us to confront the realities of death in order to discover a deeper appreciation for life.
John Mackay, another frequent contributor to these cafés, highlights the cultural differences in how different societies treat death. He notes that a lot of cultures have very loud, expressive funerals. This is in sharp contrast to the go-slow approach all too prevalent across the pond in the UK. “The problem is that people don’t talk about it,” he explains.
Watt’s initiative has not only provided a platform for open dialogue but has contributed to a broader societal shift toward embracing conversations about mortality. In creating community between participants, these cafés address the isolation that often comes with grieving. Eventually, it’s going to happen to everybody,” Watt tells conference-goers. It can be a very isolating experience if you only experience it alone, even though it may be special in its uniqueness to you and the relationships that you are mourning.
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