Death Café
Posted in rantings and ravings on December 5th, 2022 by skeeter
A rose is a rose, so it’s said, and smells just as sweet by any other name. Perusing our newspaper of record, the Crab Cracker now that the Stanwoodopolis Gazette has abdicated its role of reporting local news, I came across a notice that a new group had formed in the area for those coping with the loss of a loved one. Death Café. I know, I should be more sympathetic, possibly even supportive, might even be in need myself someday … but golly, Miss Molly, couldn’t they have come up with a better name?
Death Café. I don’t know, it just … well, it just … it has a certain morbid and cadaverous quality to it. I mean, you get to wondering what’s on the menu. Eggs 6 feet under, easy over. Soup de jour, eye of newt in a tomato bisque. BLT’s, blood lettuce and tomato. You can hardly stop yourself from imagining the worst sorts of breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Zombieburgers, cooked rare.
But these are the times we live in. Touchy-feely in a modern and alienated world. Probably better than a bunch of tweets from people you barely know on Twitter, I suppose, but c’mon, Death Café for the luvva…. ? Why not, oh, I don’t know, Heaven’s Gate Diner, or Streets of Gold Chop House (okay, maybe not), Pearly Gates Beanery, Adios Amigo Pizza Parlor, Ashes to Ashes Tavern —anything but Death Café, even Death Anonymous.
The trouble, of course, is a lot of us secular humanists, having renounced the old school religions of our parents (who are now gone too late for the Death Café), don’t know how to deal with our grief for the dearly departed since there’s no, let’s call it ‘closure’. Imagine there’s no heaven, Lennon sang. No hell below us, above us only sky. You think that’s going to make folks feel better when their loved one bites the bullet, think again. John says you may think that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. Swell, John, just swell. He says he hopes one day we’ll join him and the world will live as one. One what?
If John were around today, he’d be the fry cook at the Death Café, no doubt about it. Actually, he’d be head chef at the Imagine Bar and Grill. Happy Hour all day long….
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