This Saturday, a new kind of gathering will be coming to Peterborough – a “Death Cafe,” to be hosted at the Peterborough Town Library.

Put on by Kay Kinderman, the cafe is part of a worldwide trend of having people, often strangers, gather to discuss death.

“Basically, it involves people getting together with food and drink and talking about death in a public space,” Kinderman said. 

She got the idea to host one after hearing about them online, and made the decision to do so after thinking about a friend of hers who has “a pretty intense fear of death.” Wanting to help people like him, she said, she reached out on the town Facebook page to see if there might be interest in hosting such a gathering in Peterborough.

“The response was phenomenal,” she said. “It made me feel like there’s actually a real yearning for this.”

Death Cafes, according to deathcafe.com, got their start in 2011 from Jon Underwood in London, who wanted to build on similar gatherings put on by a Swiss sociologist, Bernard Crettaz. The goal was to provide a space for people to talk frankly about death, a topic that is often considered taboo. 

Kinderman said that she hopes this iteration of the trend will help people process their feelings about death, together.

“I think that there tends to be this connection of, ‘This is morbid,’” Kinderman said. “But I feel like it’s kind of a deed of love, for example, to let your friends and family know your own end-of-life wishes and to ask them what their wishes are.”

The meeting, following the example of the broader trend, will be free – although small donations are encouraged to cover the cost of the meeting room – and without a prepared theme or topic. 

“It’s really about group-led discussion,” Kinderman said. 

Important to note, she said, is that it is not a place for bereavement or grief counseling, but more a space to simply discuss death. 

Due to COVID-19, many such events have been held online, but Kinderman said that those interested in the event requested that it be in-person in the library. COVID-19 in and of itself has contributed to the desire and need for many to talk about death, Kinderman said.

“I think it definitely has brought more of an awareness into the contemplation of your own and others’ limited time on earth, and the interesting thing about talking about death is that it can also allow fro greater appreciation and awareness of your life,” she said. 

This could be the first of many Death Cafes, as Kinderman said that if many people attended and continued to be interested, she would be more than willing to host it about once a month. This first meeting will be limited to 12 people due to space and social-distancing concerns.

“Talking is good,” Kinderman said. “And death is going to happen to everyone, so might as well talk about it.”

The Death Cafe will be held in the Abbot Board Room in the Peterborough Town Library from 3 to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 20.