# Death and Cake

An episode of [The Best of Coast to Coast AM](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1206175991), 22 Aug 2026, 25 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/91302074-f3b9-4a98-84e0-af4e011ffabb/26ae2910-83df-44e7-a67a-b4ae00262590/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=b95f0c24-c199-4939-b52c-ae2b00350f65

Imagine sitting down with a group of strangers to discuss your mortality. Sound terrifying? It shouldn’t be. Jools Barsky and Susan Barsky Reid lead a global movement called Death Cafe, which offers non-judgmental spaces for people to share their thoughts and feelings about death. Mangesh had a wonderfully life-affirming conversation with them about the legacy of their brother and son Jon Underwood, Death Cafe’s founder; the ways in which death conversations help us make the most of our lives; and why cake is really, really important. • Visit the Death Cafe website • Find a Death Cafe event near you • Try an easy snacking cake recipe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:08] Speaker 1: When you get to the end of your life what
[0:11] Speaker 1: do you want your last memory to be do you
[0:14] Speaker 1: want it to be that you've just made a deal
[0:17] Speaker 1: that provided you with billions of pounds that you're never
[0:20] Speaker 1: going to be able to spend or do you want
[0:22] Speaker 1: that to be the conversation that you had with somebody
[0:25] Speaker 1: that you barely met and you've made a significant difference
[0:28] Speaker 1: in their life and it's forever changed.
[0:33] Speaker 2: When we set out to make this show about how
[0:36] Speaker 2: to live forever, we had no plans to grapple with
[0:39] Speaker 2: death or grief. This show was supposed to be weird
[0:43] Speaker 2: and funny and full of lightness. And then we started
[0:46] Speaker 2: thinking about immortality and life extension and then talking to
[0:50] Speaker 2: scientists and philosophers and within a pretty short time, our
[0:55] Speaker 2: little team looked at one another and said, uh, I
[0:59] Speaker 2: guess we're going to have to talk about death. Because
[1:03] Speaker 2: It's the flip side, the quiet part, that unavoidable elephant
[1:07] Speaker 2: in the room. And so at some point we knew
[1:10] Speaker 2: that confronting death was something we'd have to do. But weirdly,
[1:15] Speaker 2: it turned out to be one of the sweetest conversations
[1:18] Speaker 2: all season. I'm Mange Shetikudur. This is Skyline Drive. How
[1:24] Speaker 2: to live forever. So far on How to Live Forever,
[1:58] Speaker 2: we've bombarded you with petri dishes and crypto bros, cryogenics
[2:03] Speaker 2: and organ sacks, and even more stuff you're probably still
[2:06] Speaker 2: trying to wrap your head around. But today I wanted
[2:09] Speaker 2: to tell you about some of the brightest people I
[2:11] Speaker 2: met guiding folks through a dark space. and the international
[2:15] Speaker 2: phenomenon known as death cafes. Death cafes are events where
[2:20] Speaker 2: people gather without judgment or agenda to talk about death.
[2:24] Speaker 2: And the organization is led by two extraordinary British women.
[2:28] Speaker 1: I'm Jules Barsky. I'm one of the co-founders of Death Cafe.
[2:32] Speaker 1: I run Death Cafe as a volunteer and work as
[2:35] Speaker 1: a doctor in the NHS.
[2:38] Speaker 3: I'm Susan Barsky-Reed. I work part-time as a psychotherapist. I
[2:42] Speaker 3: voluntarily work With Death Cafe assisting Jules with some admin
[2:49] Speaker 3: and with some links to the media.
[2:52] Speaker 2: And tell me, what is your relationship with one another?
[2:54] Speaker 1: Susan's my mum.
[2:58] Speaker 2: It's pretty simple. Yeah.
[3:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, so the founder of Death Cafe is my brother John.
[3:09] Speaker 2: John Underwood was endlessly curious. a lifelong seeker who grew
[3:14] Speaker 2: up in Chester, England. He studied politics, philosophy and economics
[3:18] Speaker 2: at Oxford. He fell in love with Buddhism and even
[3:21] Speaker 2: worked for a while at a Buddhist centre in London.
[3:28] Speaker 1: John was always very philosophical, always searching for meaning in
[3:32] Speaker 1: his life. I think he's kind of felt that the
[3:35] Speaker 1: root of all evil was the lack of time and
[3:38] Speaker 1: energy that people apply to the idea of death and dying. Like,
[3:41] Speaker 1: all based in consumerism and politics and people are kind
[3:44] Speaker 1: of grasping for all of these things that they're never
[3:47] Speaker 1: going to achieve because they don't think, is this really
[3:51] Speaker 1: that important? And that was something that he strived to
[3:55] Speaker 1: do every single day.
[3:57] Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bit more about the
[3:59] Speaker 2: origin of the cafe?
[4:01] Speaker 3: Well, my husband saw an article in a newspaper about
[4:06] Speaker 3: a man called Bernard Kretas, who was a Swiss sociologist.
[4:11] Speaker 3: And he had held things called Café Mortel in bars
[4:16] Speaker 3: in Switzerland.
[4:17] Speaker 2: Creta's Café Mortels were informal salons where people were invited
[4:21] Speaker 2: to talk about death. It was a purposefully no-rule setup,
[4:26] Speaker 2: inviting all comers, with the only plan being to talk
[4:29] Speaker 2: as openly as possible about this taboo topic. His first
[4:34] Speaker 2: was in 2004, and eventually he held hundreds around bars
[4:37] Speaker 2: in alpine towns like his. He even got to Paris
[4:41] Speaker 2: in 2010, where a journalist wrote a piece about it
[4:43] Speaker 2: for The Independent. After John caught wind, he connected with
[4:48] Speaker 2: Cretin and attended his final death cafe in Lausanne, Switzerland.
[4:53] Speaker 3: Bernard Cretin said, I hand my mantle over to you.
[4:57] Speaker 3: It was a really lovely moment.
[5:00] Speaker 2: Oh, wow. And so how does he end up starting
[5:04] Speaker 2: the cafes?
[5:05] Speaker 3: It started in his kitchen in Hackney in East London.
[5:09] Speaker 3: And he got some friends together and some people that
[5:13] Speaker 3: he knew in September 2011. And I facilitated the first one.
[5:20] Speaker 1: The first death cafe was a little bit different than
[5:23] Speaker 1: death cafes look now. So there was a burning of effigies.
[5:27] Speaker 1: It was quite structured. There was sort of activities and whatnot.
[5:31] Speaker 1: And then mum said to him, John, stop. Just let
[5:34] Speaker 1: people talk. Let there be some silence and some some
[5:37] Speaker 1: space for people to kind of just start to speak
[5:40] Speaker 1: about the things that are important to them. And it
[5:42] Speaker 1: was after that that John created the guidelines alongside my mum,
[5:46] Speaker 1: which are very specific about what death cafes are and
[5:50] Speaker 1: are not and how to run them.
[5:52] Speaker 2: Can you walk me through a typical death cafe meeting today?
[5:56] Speaker 3: Well, the thing is that it's always different. It depends
[5:59] Speaker 3: on the people that go. Before it starts, I have
[6:03] Speaker 3: music playing. That is my own personal preference. And then
[6:08] Speaker 3: people sit down at the appointed time. And I always
[6:12] Speaker 3: forget to tell them how long we're going to be there,
[6:14] Speaker 3: which is an hour and a half. Please turn off
[6:17] Speaker 3: your phone. Please be respectful to everybody's views. And can
[6:23] Speaker 3: you tell us what's brought you here today? And that
[6:26] Speaker 3: is literally what you do. And the conversation then flows
[6:31] Speaker 3: from there.
[6:31] Speaker 1: With some introduction about how Death Cafe started, like it
[6:34] Speaker 1: was started by John. Yeah.
[6:36] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[6:36] Speaker 1: And then there will be a reiteration, a little bit
[6:39] Speaker 1: of the guidelines. Death cafes are always free. We only
[6:42] Speaker 1: ask for donations which pay for costs. We're not going
[6:45] Speaker 1: to lead anybody to a course of action or conclusion.
[6:48] Speaker 1: This is literally just no topics. Everybody can speak about
[6:51] Speaker 1: whatever they'd like to speak about. You shouldn't run a
[6:53] Speaker 1: death cafe in order to promote your product or your service.
[6:58] Speaker 3: I don't actually say any of that.
[7:01] Speaker 2: You should. Yes, boss. Yeah.
[7:06] Speaker 3: Well, I have recently started running a regular series of
[7:11] Speaker 3: death cafes, which I've never done before. And what I
[7:14] Speaker 3: really love is how much closeness and intimacy can develop
[7:19] Speaker 3: in the hour and a half that you speak with
[7:22] Speaker 3: these strangers. And I'm never probably going to see most
[7:25] Speaker 3: of them again. And it's incredible that you need to
[7:28] Speaker 3: experience it to understand, but it never ceases to amaze
[7:33] Speaker 3: me how such a simple thing can happen. brings such
[7:36] Speaker 3: closeness between people.
[7:37] Speaker 2: And I hear that there's cake at these events. Why
[7:43] Speaker 2: is there cake? There's always cake.
[7:48] Speaker 1: So John described it as having kind of like a
[7:51] Speaker 1: midnight feast, but it's a bit kind of naughty talking
[7:54] Speaker 1: about something that's so taboo whilst having delicious cake and
[7:58] Speaker 1: cups of tea because the ritual of eating is nourishing
[8:02] Speaker 1: and therefore kind of life prolonging.
[8:04] Speaker 3: Always make Okay, that's part of my preparation. I've done
[8:08] Speaker 3: a ginger and spice treacle cake, a lemon drizzle cake,
[8:13] Speaker 3: chocolate cake. I'm wondering about coffee and walnut, but I
[8:17] Speaker 3: don't know whether that's a bit niche. I don't know
[8:20] Speaker 3: what you think.
[8:21] Speaker 2: Me? I shouldn't have an opinion on the baby jewels.
[8:26] Speaker 3: There is a belief that it's going to be very
[8:30] Speaker 3: sad and mournful going to a death cafe, but certainly
[8:33] Speaker 3: the one I did Last week, people laughed a lot.
[8:38] Speaker 3: It was a lot of fun.
[8:40] Speaker 2: Do you feel like when people walk out of these
[8:42] Speaker 2: cafes that they have a renewed spirit of life? Do
[8:47] Speaker 2: they seem lighter? What's the feeling of the person that
[8:50] Speaker 2: walks out of these places versus the person who comes in?
[8:53] Speaker 3: I think the sharing makes it, you feel lighter. And
[8:58] Speaker 3: it's like I was thinking about after a therapy session,
[9:02] Speaker 3: if I've done a reasonable job, people walk out feeling better.
[9:07] Speaker 3: It's almost like their face, you know, people's faces can
[9:10] Speaker 3: be worried and creased. And then when they relax, their
[9:15] Speaker 3: faces look like they've been ironed. I think they look
[9:19] Speaker 3: like that when they come out of a death cafe.
[9:22] Speaker 2: So tell me, like, are these clubs, are they for grief?
[9:26] Speaker 2: Why exactly do people join?
[9:28] Speaker 3: Well, they've joined for a variety of reasons. Curiosity is
[9:33] Speaker 3: one of them. And another one is the fact that
[9:35] Speaker 3: it's not always acceptable in our culture to be talking
[9:40] Speaker 3: about death and dying. And people want to feel free
[9:43] Speaker 3: to be able to do that. It's not just about grief.
[9:47] Speaker 3: Grief often comes up in the conversation.
[9:51] Speaker 1: And we actually discourage people who are what we call
[9:54] Speaker 1: in the white hot heat of grief from attending death cafes,
[9:57] Speaker 1: just because there are places that are much better for
[10:00] Speaker 1: providing grief support than death cafes are grief is always
[10:04] Speaker 1: going to make an appearance i think because the majority
[10:07] Speaker 1: of people who are thinking about death and dying have
[10:09] Speaker 1: had an experience in their lives which is directly associated
[10:12] Speaker 1: but having said that you've also got people who attend
[10:15] Speaker 1: who have never had that experience and, you know, had
[10:19] Speaker 1: thanatophobia or fear of death. And this kind of is
[10:22] Speaker 1: almost like an exposure therapy to provide them with an
[10:25] Speaker 1: opportunity to make that first journey into maybe coming to
[10:29] Speaker 1: terms with it.
[10:41] Speaker 2: It was just a matter of time before our conversation
[10:43] Speaker 2: came around to grief. Partially because Because grief is at
[10:47] Speaker 2: the heart of their story and why Susan and Jules
[10:50] Speaker 2: continue to run Death Cafe International.
[10:54] Speaker 1: You know, John was doing this full time and it
[10:59] Speaker 1: was his baby. Whereas, you know, I'm kind of balancing
[11:04] Speaker 1: this alongside my own family life and, you know, working
[11:08] Speaker 1: in a job that takes quite a lot from me.
[11:14] Speaker 2: John Underwood died in 2017, six years after that first
[11:19] Speaker 2: death cafe in his kitchen in Hackney. He was just 44.
[11:24] Speaker 2: When we come back from a quick break, we'll hear
[11:26] Speaker 2: more about his life and how facing his own death
[11:30] Speaker 2: helped others, including his own family, deal with the measurable loss.
[11:52] Speaker 1: John had been feeling unwell for a couple of weeks,
[11:55] Speaker 1: assuming it was a kind of flu bug. And then
[11:59] Speaker 1: he collapsed very suddenly after taking his children to a
[12:02] Speaker 1: swimming class. So we all rushed over to the hospital
[12:05] Speaker 1: where he was and we were with him whilst he
[12:07] Speaker 1: was on life support. He'd had a brain hemorrhage as
[12:11] Speaker 1: a result of a rare form of leukemia called acute
[12:14] Speaker 1: promyelocytic leukemia, which would have been treatable if they'd discovered
[12:20] Speaker 1: the source of the bleeding before it had caused catastrophic
[12:23] Speaker 1: damage by result of a stroke. So my mum and
[12:27] Speaker 1: I were with John. And I think a lot of
[12:30] Speaker 1: it was, for me anyway, knowing what John would have
[12:33] Speaker 1: been wanting at that point. And then because of Death Cafe,
[12:37] Speaker 1: he'd already created this vast network of people who knew
[12:41] Speaker 1: about him and had been on the front cover of
[12:44] Speaker 1: the New York Times and had been in the Huffington Post.
[12:47] Speaker 1: He was a public figure.
[12:54] Speaker 2: John's wife, Donna, announced his passing in a blog post
[12:57] Speaker 2: on the Death Cafe website. As you all know, the
[13:02] Speaker 2: objective of Death Cafe is helping us all make the
[13:05] Speaker 2: most of our finite lives. With shocking poignancy, on Sunday,
[13:09] Speaker 2: the 25th of June, we experienced the finiteness of life
[13:13] Speaker 2: at its most brutal. And more specifically, the finiteness of
[13:17] Speaker 2: the life of John Underwood, founder of Death Cafe, dad
[13:21] Speaker 2: to two truly amazing children, And my husband. He was 44.
[13:34] Speaker 2: What was it like to lose him, but also to
[13:37] Speaker 2: know that he was ready or thinking about his death
[13:41] Speaker 2: in a way that a lot of people don't or
[13:44] Speaker 2: don't make time for?
[13:45] Speaker 1: There was some comfort for me that he had discussed
[13:48] Speaker 1: the fact that, you know, we don't know how long
[13:50] Speaker 1: we're going to be here. This could be the last
[13:52] Speaker 1: time that You see somebody or you get to hold
[13:56] Speaker 1: that person. Dealing with his legacy, making sure that Death
[13:59] Speaker 1: Cafe was being run, gave us an opportunity to focus
[14:03] Speaker 1: on something. I don't know if it necessarily helped with
[14:06] Speaker 1: grief because it was so sudden and he was so
[14:08] Speaker 1: very important to all of us, but it provided me
[14:13] Speaker 1: with an outlet for the energy that was kind of
[14:15] Speaker 1: coming from the situation.
[14:17] Speaker 3: Working on Death Cafe maintains a sort of closeness with him.
[14:22] Speaker 3: that i might not feel otherwise the fact that he
[14:26] Speaker 3: started this and we're carrying it on is a really
[14:29] Speaker 3: a good feeling.
[14:32] Speaker 2: What's it been like to to carry on some of
[14:34] Speaker 2: his legacy for you.
[14:36] Speaker 1: When i'm doing this work i feel like i'm kind
[14:38] Speaker 1: of embodying a part of him that still exists um
[14:42] Speaker 1: a lot of the replies that i send to people
[14:45] Speaker 1: are based on interactions that he's had with them in
[14:47] Speaker 1: the past you know i I use his email account,
[14:49] Speaker 1: so I'm looking up, like, what's the history with this person?
[14:52] Speaker 1: What would John have said about this particular difficult thing
[14:55] Speaker 1: that's appearing? But then I think there's also an element of,
[14:59] Speaker 1: is this what's required in the world because things have changed? Like,
[15:04] Speaker 1: he wasn't here through COVID and the kind of political
[15:07] Speaker 1: unrest that's happening across the world at the moment. You know,
[15:11] Speaker 1: would this have made a difference to the decisions that
[15:14] Speaker 1: he would have made?
[15:15] Speaker 2: You've described John as... a seeker. And you've also described
[15:23] Speaker 2: him as someone who felt a greater calling to leave
[15:28] Speaker 2: a big job to take on what to him was
[15:31] Speaker 2: a more important job. And you've also described him in
[15:34] Speaker 2: this shade of almost like naughtiness, this fun and this
[15:37] Speaker 2: convivial person. Can you describe who John was to you
[15:41] Speaker 2: and who he was in the family?
[15:43] Speaker 1: He would sit up for hours having one-on-one conversations with
[15:46] Speaker 1: somebody about his view on what they were telling him
[15:50] Speaker 1: about and provide some quite kind of judgmental views sometimes.
[16:00] Speaker 1: But I think it kind of came from a place
[16:02] Speaker 1: of wisdom and experience. And I think there are some
[16:06] Speaker 1: people who just have this kind of special quality about
[16:09] Speaker 1: them that you can't necessarily describe, but it's kind of
[16:13] Speaker 1: like a presence and a thoughtfulness that you're just kind
[16:18] Speaker 1: of born with um but in addition to that he
[16:23] Speaker 1: was also like incredibly silly and a joker and you
[16:27] Speaker 1: know just made people laugh and said daft things a lot.
[16:32] Speaker 3: He was a very loving son always very good at
[16:35] Speaker 3: listening if you wanted to think something over he was
[16:39] Speaker 3: a good person to phone and and say this is
[16:42] Speaker 3: happening what do you think and just being around him
[16:46] Speaker 3: was just Brilliant. He was a great.
[16:48] Speaker 2: Dad as well.
[16:49] Speaker 3: A really good dad.
[16:53] Speaker 2: Was he an optimist? No. In your minds, what is
[17:09] Speaker 2: the sort of ultimate goal for this movement? And would
[17:12] Speaker 2: you even consider it a movement?
[17:15] Speaker 1: We describe it as a death cafe movement. I think
[17:17] Speaker 1: that it's taken off so much that describing it as
[17:20] Speaker 1: something less would kind of be undervaluing it. And it's
[17:23] Speaker 1: made quite a significant change. You know, we have people
[17:25] Speaker 1: who are quite prevalent in the death and dying industry
[17:29] Speaker 1: who've said how influential John and Death Cafe has been
[17:32] Speaker 1: to them.
[17:32] Speaker 2: I was doing some reporting in San Francisco, which is
[17:36] Speaker 2: obviously a land now of Bitcoin and billionaires and people
[17:41] Speaker 2: who have sort of worked around certain rules to their advantage.
[17:47] Speaker 2: And I think that in Silicon Valley, there are these
[17:49] Speaker 2: real deep philosophical questions about death, but it's turned from
[17:56] Speaker 2: what might've been about accepting death to not accepting death, right?
[18:01] Speaker 2: Like that you should be prolonging your life as long
[18:03] Speaker 2: as possible, that there are ways to upload your consciousness,
[18:06] Speaker 2: that we think talking about death gives our life meaning
[18:09] Speaker 2: when in fact, that's just because that was the limit
[18:12] Speaker 2: that we previously had. And I'm curious, like one question,
[18:16] Speaker 2: Have you encountered these spaces which seem to be growing
[18:20] Speaker 2: in the US? And two, what do you think about
[18:23] Speaker 2: that counterweight to what I think is....
[18:29] Speaker 1: So there's people like Brian Johnson, right, who are trying
[18:32] Speaker 1: to live for as long as possible and they're dedicating
[18:36] Speaker 1: their life to extension of their physiological abilities. I can
[18:40] Speaker 1: kind of see the appeal of doing that You know,
[18:43] Speaker 1: if you're enjoying your life and you want to make
[18:45] Speaker 1: the most of it, you want to try and get
[18:46] Speaker 1: as much as you can. But then you're also downplaying
[18:50] Speaker 1: every single other element of your existence for the pursuit
[18:55] Speaker 1: of elongation, which kind of seems a bit reductive, I suppose.
[19:00] Speaker 1: So are we focusing so much on life extension to
[19:05] Speaker 1: the point where we can't actually focus on the interactions
[19:09] Speaker 1: that we have every day with our families and the
[19:11] Speaker 1: people we work with and the people that we see
[19:12] Speaker 1: in the street? Are those maybe the more important parts
[19:16] Speaker 1: of our existence? There's an interesting Buddhist lesson about this
[19:22] Speaker 1: bowl of ice cream. You're really craving this beautiful bowl
[19:25] Speaker 1: of ice cream. You start eating it and you're like, oh,
[19:27] Speaker 1: this is fantastic.
[19:28] Speaker 2: It's huge.
[19:29] Speaker 1: And you keep on eating it. And then about halfway through,
[19:32] Speaker 1: you're thinking, oh, this is the worst thing I've ever done.
[19:34] Speaker 1: I feel terrible. I'm sick.
[19:36] Speaker 2: I'm bloated.
[19:37] Speaker 1: My face is sticky. And you think that this ice
[19:41] Speaker 1: cream is going to be everything you ever wanted. And
[19:44] Speaker 1: it turns out that actually it's not because never ending
[19:48] Speaker 1: ice cream is never going to be everything that you
[19:50] Speaker 1: want it to be.
[19:51] Speaker 3: I really have no desire to live forever. I'm glad
[19:56] Speaker 3: that my life is finite. And as I get older
[20:00] Speaker 3: and older and my body becomes less comfortable place to
[20:05] Speaker 3: be in, it's only going to get worse. I don't,
[20:09] Speaker 3: Relish the idea of living forever.
[20:12] Speaker 1: There's a bit of give and take with the whole thing.
[20:16] Speaker 1: Like we want to be living the longest life possible
[20:20] Speaker 1: in the best health that we can achieve. And so
[20:23] Speaker 1: I can understand people making these steps to make their
[20:26] Speaker 1: bodies a little bit more sustainable. So you might start
[20:30] Speaker 1: vitamins and supplements and you might think, oh, I know
[20:33] Speaker 1: that my joints are going to get worse if I
[20:34] Speaker 1: don't exercise. So I'm going to do that. And you
[20:37] Speaker 1: integrate these things into your life because you know it's
[20:39] Speaker 1: going to bring you an element of happiness. You're going
[20:41] Speaker 1: to be around your loved ones for longer. So it's
[20:44] Speaker 1: a bit of a balance. You know, John was far
[20:46] Speaker 1: too young for a person to lose their life. And yes,
[20:49] Speaker 1: you can achieve a lot and you can have an
[20:52] Speaker 1: incredibly meaningful existence. But death is terrible at the end
[20:56] Speaker 1: of the day.
[20:57] Speaker 3: For the people that are left, it's terrible.
[21:00] Speaker 1: I think there's the experience that the person themselves goes
[21:03] Speaker 1: through when they're dying. It's an incredibly painful experience. They
[21:08] Speaker 1: have to deal with the emotions of their family members
[21:10] Speaker 1: as well. So I don't think it's just the people
[21:13] Speaker 1: that are left behind. And I suppose when you work
[21:16] Speaker 1: with death and dying in the way that we do,
[21:18] Speaker 1: you think about death in quite a different way. And
[21:22] Speaker 1: you've got to start somewhere, right? You can do nothing
[21:26] Speaker 1: or you can try to change the kind of general
[21:28] Speaker 1: populace from the ground up. And if you can just
[21:32] Speaker 1: make these small moments in people's lives a little bit
[21:35] Speaker 1: better or a little bit more thoughtful, if that's the
[21:37] Speaker 1: best you're going to do, at least you've done something.
[21:47] Speaker 2: As we wrapped up our conversation, my mind kept going
[21:50] Speaker 2: back to the semester I spent in Tibet and the
[21:53] Speaker 2: sky burials I'd witnessed there. This ritual that reminds mourners
[21:58] Speaker 2: of the impermanence of life And knowing that John was
[22:02] Speaker 2: a devoted Buddhist, I wondered if at the core, death
[22:06] Speaker 2: cafes perform a similar role. What is your goal for
[22:13] Speaker 2: someone who comes to a death cafe beyond sort of
[22:17] Speaker 2: walking out and feeling lighter? Like, do you think they
[22:20] Speaker 2: should all wake up every morning and consider the fact
[22:23] Speaker 2: that they might die today or that their life is impermanent?
[22:27] Speaker 1: I think knowing that it's had the tiniest impact on
[22:30] Speaker 1: someone's life that they do think about death and dying.
[22:35] Speaker 1: For me, it's made my interactions with people much more meaningful.
[22:39] Speaker 1: Because I think, is this the last time that this
[22:41] Speaker 1: person's ever going to speak to anybody else? And if
[22:45] Speaker 1: that's the case, is that the kind of taste in
[22:47] Speaker 1: your mouth that you want to leave them with?
[22:49] Speaker 2: MUSIC PLAYS Thank you so much for listening. That is
[23:16] Speaker 2: it for the bonus episodes of this season of Skyline Drive.
[23:20] Speaker 2: I would like to thank Jules Barsky and Susan Barsky-Reed
[23:23] Speaker 2: for taking the time to share their story and John's.
[23:27] Speaker 2: If you'd like to learn more about the Death Cafe movement,
[23:29] Speaker 2: please go to deathcafe.com. There might be one near you,
[23:33] Speaker 2: and if not, maybe you'd like to start one. We'll
[23:36] Speaker 2: also put a link in the show notes. If you've
[23:38] Speaker 2: liked this series... please, please tell a friend and it
[23:41] Speaker 2: really does help if you rate and review. So of
[23:44] Speaker 2: course we would be appreciative for that too. And if
[23:48] Speaker 2: you didn't know already, making this show has been such
[23:52] Speaker 2: a joy. I've loved getting to learn and share with
[23:55] Speaker 2: all of you. So if you want to ask a question,
[23:57] Speaker 2: share a story, or just get in touch, do not
[24:00] Speaker 2: hesitate to reach out. You can reach me at Insta
[24:04] Speaker 2: at M particular. And yeah, Hopefully we'll get to do
[24:08] Speaker 2: a season three in the not so distant. This interview
[24:11] Speaker 2: was produced by the wonderful Lizzie Jacobs. Additional production and
[24:16] Speaker 2: research by Mary Phillips Sandy. Thanks as always to our editor,
[24:20] Speaker 2: Mark Lotto, who told me the series was going to
[24:22] Speaker 2: be about death before I was ready to admit it.
[24:25] Speaker 2: This episode was mixed by my good pal Dylan Fagan,
[24:29] Speaker 2: who's over there in the booth eating a giant slice
[24:31] Speaker 2: of cake. Thank you so much for listening.

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