Death cafes help ease grief, loss amid coronavirus
Green-Wood Cemetery pioneered concept in Brooklyn
Panic attacks, trouble breathing, relapses that have sent her to bed for 14 hours at a time: At 35, Marissa Oliver has been forced to deal with the specter of death on COVID-19’s terms, yet conversations about her illness, fear and anxiety haven’t been easy.
That’s why she headed onto Zoom to attend a death cafe, a gathering of strangers willing to explore mortality and its impact on the living, preferably while sipping tea and eating cake.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has given a boost to the idea of death cafes, they have been held for several years by Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, first in the cemetery’s “beautiful chapel” and now on Zoom.