At Green-Wood Cemetery, a Friendly Place to Talk About the End | Village Voice

Amy Cunningham, wearing Buddhist prayer beads and rose-colored pom-pom earrings, prepared to lead the discussion. She's run the Brooklyn Death Café, an offshoot of the international movement to normalize conversations about death, since 2015. "These Death Cafés are, in our own way, bringing the dead back into our daily lives," Cunningham explained, "by visiting and communing with them and going to spaces like the crematory and seeing the urns in the wall. This is altogether a healthy and positive thing." Cunningham, who worked as a writer and editor for decades, became involved in the death industry after her own father's passing, with hopes of helping others cope with the passing of a loved one as her own funeral director had helped her. She is now an independent funeral director focused on eco-friendly burial and cremation. The cafés, which she leads as a volunteer, are another element of her practice. "I just thought it'd be a nice way to educate people," Cunningham says. "Death shouldn't be so scary. The more we move in toward death, the more we'll learn and put ourselves at ease about our own inevitable demise." 

At Green-Wood Cemetery, a Friendly Place to Talk About the End | Village Voice: