 Happy Chinese New Year and well about a show where we explore a variety of topics, organizations, events, the people who fuel them in our city, state, country and world. I'm Winston Welch and as a disclaimer, any views or opinions expressed by me are strictly my own and not connected with any organization. Joining me back in the studio today, I am delighted to have Leilani Maxera of the Death Cafe Honolulu. Last time you remember Leilani was here with the Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction Center, but we're going to be talking about a really interesting and different topic today. So welcome to the show and thanks for being my guest. It's my honor to have you back here. Yeah, thank you for inviting me back. I appreciate that you enjoyed talking to me enough to have me back to talk to you again. Absolutely. You're a really interesting person and in the interim I've seen you. We met up at what's that round building by the university where there was. Oh, the Kivayavai Collective? Yes, the Kivayavai Collective and there was a show there and it was was that produced by the Death Cafe Honolulu? No, so I wish I could remember the date, but the event you're talking about was actually put on by Civil Beat and they have this ongoing, I guess, talk story session on different topics. They invite speakers in the community and the topic that evening was how I talk about death or how we talk about death. And so they'd invited several speakers to tell their personal stories about how death has affected their lives. And thank you so much for attending. I was lucky enough to be one of the speakers. Oh, it was super interesting and I think it's still online. People can Google that on Civil Beat and it's probably still posted up there. But yeah, it was very personal narratives of stories of how death had affected people's lives and just a very intimate sharing amongst people that were there. You know, I've always been interested in this topic that you formed a group around and that you're an expert in. And so naturally I was more curious when we were talking before, but what is a Death Cafe and what's Death Cafe Honolulu? So the Death Cafe movement started in 2011 and it actually started in Europe. And it was based on the teachings and I know I'm going to mess their name up because I can't figure out how to pronounce is Bernard Cortez, I think. It was started by John Underwood and a woman named Sue Barski Reed. And basically they wanted to find a way to have public space for people to come together to talk about death and dying. And the most important part of the setup that they created was there's no there's understanding that you cannot come to a conclusion at the end of the discussion. A lot of times people come together they think they'll find the answers to the meaning of life and death. But they knew it was important to have like a kind of a open space to talk story and people can talk about anything they want related to death and dying. And when they started 2011 it was a very small group of people that came together said we have no agenda. We all you know all they ask there's very few rules when you have a Death Cafe just that there's no agenda, no preset questions or topics. You can't sell anything at it. You can't charge for it has to be free. And it's not a it's not a grief or bereavement support group either it's just a discussion group. So if people come and they feel and you might not even know until you arrive if you have a lot of grief that might come up when you're speaking we try to have resources to refer people to. And one of the other only rules because it started in England you have to serve tea and cake. So that cafes have to have just tea and cake and so what made you decide to start one here and and how did you do that. So it's just it's not it's not exactly it's like a nonprofit franchise almost but with no costs. Well basically all they ask is is that you follow those those rules I just mentioned and that it just has to be called death cafe and then your location. So going backwards about six years ago I attended Death Cafe Sonoma in Sonoma in California and it was amazing. It was one of the most interesting experiences I've ever had because I've my background is I have a master's in public health in with an emphasis in aging. And at the time I was working for an organization in California that focused on advanced care planning and having those important conversations about what you want at the end of life. And so I'd heard of death cafes at this time they'd only been around for a few years since 2011. And it was the closest one I'd heard of happening near where I lived. And so I attended and it was an amazing conversation. Interestingly it was mostly older people. I guess that makes sense considering that usually who shows up to the death cafe is that I put on even I think people are thinking as they age or thinking a little more about the mortality. And in the topics covered the first experience with loss people had had people brought up. You know their pets dying not not knowing what to do if they if if they could keep their ashes not knowing if that was legal. You know someone being very frank that they're they were incredibly scared to die. And they were sick actually had a serious illness at the time and they were too afraid to tell their family they were scared but they wanted to talk with us about it. It was a very moving experience. So shortly after I moved to Hawaii and looked up on the death cafe website which you can look up in your area where the closest death cafe was. And there wasn't one here on a Wahoo so I just decided to go ahead and start it. And we've had one here for five years now and we put on in those five years I put on 16 death cafes and then also some other like movie nights showing different movies around death and dying and having discussion groups and sponsored some other events as well. And so you end up putting on something about once a quarter or so. At first it was it was monthly and then I went back to school to get a another master's in social work. So I was working full time going to school full time. It made it a little more difficult. So now just about four or five times a year. Yeah. Okay, it's a great. It's sort of a talk story forum then I guess it's not exactly 12 step and it's not exactly a support group but it's just a place where people can come together and talk about death issues and dying issues and the whole nine yards. So you said that there's not a specific topics but do you end up having themes sometimes like maybe green burials or advanced care directors or something? It absolutely depends on who shows up where the conversation goes because all I do is set the tone and the space and then the intention for the room. And then all we do is after, you know, saying those very few rules that we have, everyone goes around introduces themselves. And the only question I ask is who, who are you tell us a little about yourself and what brought you here today? And the smallest one we've ever had was only five or six people showed up the biggest one we ever had was over 20 people showed up. And just depending on who's in the room, you know, that launches the conversation just based on the introduction. After everyone's done introducing themselves, I say did anybody say anything that resonated with you or is there something that you really want to comment on that someone else said or is there just a topic you really are burning to talk about tonight? And people just start talking and two hour it's two hours and it goes by like that. I bet it doesn't go two hours went by because there's very, very rarely a bowl in the conversation. And I'm sure people come out with some really meaningful connections and information and maybe some new friends out of it as well of people who are thinking about the same thing or want to want to know more or share their story. Yeah, I mean I think so there's some people who come every time. There's a few people that are that come back come back. There's a few people that want they came once and they're like this was great this is exactly what I need is a jumping off point to talk to other people in my life. I've had several people come who were on vacation from other places which I found very interesting that they saw it from a friend of a friend or heard about it came just for that one off. And I was kind of like you're here on your vacation you're coming to this that's cool. So it's been it's a big it's a big mix who shows up. Well and I can imagine that a lot of people maybe they're coming in from Australia or Japan or something and they they don't have a death cafe and they're interested. What is this and maybe you've sparked them to start something else where they came from as well. I see that's the amazing thing there there's I can't remember how many cities it's in but there's been over 10,000 death cafes to date in in like over I think over 60 countries. I can't remember the exact number but it's pretty widespread at this point. Do you all get together once a year or something and share stories or how you organize your own groups or anything. No so on the death cafe website. You can register your own your death cafe on there and they have a list of rules how to help with you know suggestions for facilitation of one. The biggest support I've gotten is there's actually a Facebook group for death cafe hosts, and people post on there, you know saying this happened. How should I deal with this next time, or just sharing good stories about things that have happened. I shared on there before once I was having a really hard time finding a space. I would host it because it needs to be a free space which as you probably know is pretty difficult in Hawaii to find a place you don't have to pay to rent. So we've gone through several spaces. There was no parking issues, but the great thing now is that we have a hopefully permanent home at Temple Emanuel. They've been really great about letting us use their library for free and have been very supportive. So for now I think we're good on space. And that's up on the on the highway on new on isn't it? Yeah, right near the next to the Unitarian church. It's, you know, it's a, so if people wanted to go follow along and find out information about the organization, where can they find out stuff locally? Is there a Facebook page or do you have a website as well? Yeah, we do have a Facebook page. It's just death cafe Honolulu. I try to update it with whenever we're having an upcoming event. I update it I try to update it with other local events that are related to death and dying as well. I haven't I, you know, share things on grief. Sometimes I try to share things around the holidays, things like that. I posted something yesterday. I know that although I actually don't know anything about sports. I know that Kobe Bryant dying was a big deal for a lot of people who are big sports fans, people in California, etc. And I posted something about it's okay, you know, to turn off social media, basically like something I reposted from somewhere else. Because right now a lot of people are glued to the news, glued to social media. And for some people it makes them feel less alone. When somebody dies, especially someone like a celebrity that they may not have known, but also it can it depends on who you are. It can also be very overwhelming to constantly being bombarded to constantly be bombarded with with that death talk. So it's different for everybody. And it's a good point because we don't really deal with death very well in our society. We don't have a lot of venues to talk about it. And we don't know what to say, think or feel. Sometimes what's right, what's not right. So this is, I'm really excited that this forum exists for people. And I'm sure if they, if it's been a while since they've had one, somebody emails you and says, hey, could we do something? You're probably amenable to that, although given your time constraints, I appreciate that as well. So this is so interesting. We're going to go over some more of this after we come back from a short break here about the issues about the Kokua Mouth Speakers Bureau, the National Home Funeral Alliance, what people are really most wanting to talk about and those types of things. But for right now we do have to take a short break. I'm Winston Welch. This is out and about on the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series. And we are delighted to be talking with Leilani Maxera of the Death Cafe, Honolulu. We'll be back in a moment for more of the story. Aloha. I'm Keisha King, host of At the Crossroads, where we have conversations that are real and relevant. We have spoken with community leaders from right here locally in Hawaii and all around the world. Won't you join us on thinktechhawaii.com or on YouTube on the Think Tech Hawaii channel. Our conversations are real, relevant, and lots of fun. I'll see you at the Crossroads. Aloha. Aloha, y'all. My name is Mitch Ewan. I'm from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. And I'm the host of Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy. We're on every Wednesday at four o'clock, and we hope that we have interesting guests who talk to us about various energy things that are happening in Hawaii all the way from PV to windmills to hydrogen, most of my heart, electric buses and electric vehicles. So please dial in every Wednesday at four o'clock on Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy. Aloha. Hey, we're back. We're live. I'm Winston Welton. This is out and about on the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series, talking with Leilani Maxera of the Death Cafe Honolulu. This is just right after New Year's, the year of the Metal Rat has started in 2020, and we are delighted to have Leilani back. Thanks for being here again. I was just saying you've had such an interesting background in your life. You actually wrote your master's thesis, I thought was so interesting, on home funerals and the grief process. But how did you particularly get interested in this area in these topics? So to go back a while now, when I was around 25 years old, my grandmother got very sick. She had what it turned out to be pancreatic cancer, and also she had a form of dementia. And at that time, all of the deaths that I'd had in my life had been sudden deaths, so suicides or homicides, accidents. And I had no idea how to deal with a long-term illness, and it was something that most people in my personal life and family had also not dealt with yet. And it didn't go well. You know, that's a hour-long conversation there, but basically when my grandmother was sick, I had no idea how to take care of her. I had no idea what she needed. I had never heard of hospice. I had never heard of palliative care, advanced care directives. And we had a very difficult time with the hospital that we were dealing with that they never offered us information that those options existed for her. And so when she died, honestly, I had kind of a nervous breakdown, had severe depression for a really long time because I felt like I didn't do enough to take care of her. And only after she died learned more about hospice, learned more about these options. Because I don't know if you've ever been a full-time caregiver, a part-time caregiver, when you're trying to keep a job and take care of a loved one. You don't really have a lot of time to research stuff. You're just in it. So it was only after she died that I had that space and time to realize what, oh, I could have done this differently. I should have done this differently. And I got really obsessed about talking about just basically educating other people about their options in different ways with serious illness and death. So I went back to school, like I mentioned earlier about my master's in public health with emphasis in aging and focused on the intersections between serious illness, public health and death and dying. And then I've just dedicated a lot of my time ever since to volunteering, helping people do their advanced health care directives, teaching them how to have those conversations with their loved ones. Teaching people about hospice and palliative care, because there's a lot of people that actually do not know that these options exist. And just everything I can do to get people talking about these conversations and home funerals, like any aspect of it I'm down to talk about. It's so interesting. So you took a personal tragedy and made some real good use of that and it undoubtedly helped so many people in this. And I really respect you for that. And you do this as an involuntary capacity, just giving back to society. And I know people have really benefited just because they have. And I wonder if we look at some of these things here. We got a few slides to go on. This is going to prompt a couple of questions that will pop up. But I love the first one, which is you mentioned we have to have cake and tea at every death cafe. That's a great, great cake there. And so that's really great at finding people that'll decorate the cake for it. It was that locally made. Yeah, I think she got it. I'm sure that when she goes to the bakery, because the last several times she's got the cake for me, I'm sure when she goes to the bakery, they're like, okay, I'll put welcome to the death cafe on here for you. Okay, yeah, that's cake decorators get it all. So the next slide we've got is it looks like at the Unitarian Church. And it looks like Scott Foster on the right there and probably talking about some things. So you have regularly held that looks like a panel maybe about talking about something. Which may not have been the death cafe. Yeah. Yeah, that wasn't something I put on but I recall from looking at that picture that was something actually compassion and choices. Okay. I think with that on and we were we went and hung out at that but it was I think it was an open talk before they passed the law about medical aid and dying here. Okay, we had the folks on here for that as well now the next one is something that is more. Maybe it's an interesting thing and this goes to home funerals. This is a volunteer here I'm on all volunteers on the table and standing. But what's going on here. So this was taken as I think maybe that was almost five years ago more than five years ago now. I'm Jerry Grace Lyons is the woman in the blue top, and she lives on the continent in California. And she is an educator teacher and home funeral guide, basically teaching people how to take care of their own loved ones when they die, and how to have a home base vigil and funeral for them. And she'd come to Hawaii and did a very small workshop with with several of us to practice and and talk more about how to guide families in in choosing that option for a loved one if they died. What is the National Home Funeral Alliance. The National Home Funeral Alliance is an amazing organization of which I'm a volunteer and member that helps that their mission their goal is also to help support and guide families who want to choose a home funeral option. I don't realize that home funerals are legal. They're perfectly legal to some capacity in all 50 states you can have one on your own there are some states that have different laws that unfortunately, it's not uniform across the country. So, you know, for example, some states you have to have a funeral director involved in some aspect of it, whether it just be paperwork or transport. So the confurals in many other countries it's still the norm. And in the United States it was the norm up until the Civil War that we took care of our own that at home. And it was only around the time of the Civil War that it was the first time people really died farther away from home like on the battlefield. So we had to find a way to take care of the bodies, you know, they start doing embalming things like that and it really is a large funeral industry. Yeah, and that's kind of the birth of the funeral industry. Yeah. And do you work with the funeral industry as well. We have I tried to partner with local folks I've I have met some local people who are interested who are people who own like, you know, the traditional I guess you would say funeral homes that are interested in how to support families that want to have funeral, but I haven't really partnered with the local place yet that is really interested in how to support that. But there's another. There's a group here I don't know if you've heard of Pahiki caskets it's like a eco friendly casket company, and they're doing a lot of really good work in education as well and our partnering more with the funeral homes in helping people have more greener funerals as well, then home funerals are a part of that. Is it hard to have a natural death and a natural burial in Hawaii. It is harder than some other states and that's because land usage here on a Wahoo, there is not a particularly green burial space here. In Hawaii, actually, I don't know, you know, Ram Dass diet recently, and he was a part of the death store there with Bode B, and they are doing home funerals they're teaching people about home funerals, and are opening up a new space and green burial ground here. So, you know, here's a great example, Jewish burial, you need to have be one when you're buried you have to be able to go back to the earth. And there's only one Jew, I believe one place here Abraham's garden that they still are required to put the casket into a vault like a cement vault which is absolute waste because it's terrible for the environment, but they drill holes in it so that people can go back to the earth, but it's because the local legislation for that area they you know it rains a lot. So they say oh it's for safety reasons but I truly believe that we need to find a way to have more green spaces here because all of that the embalming fluid, the concrete for vaults, all of the materials that are put into like regular caskets. That's just sitting in the earth that comes that all comes back to us. And so we really need to find ways to prioritize more green space for for burial in a perfect world if I had all the money I would find a way to purchase that land here. Is there is there a green burial site that people can can go to that you that you like to to learn about different alternatives to traditional casket and ball burial. If you're a funeral consumer alliance I believe might have that I'm sorry I don't know the websites off the top of my head, and then green burial council is a really good resource for places to go. You know, and they can also talk to you about the laws in different places like for example like I mentioned I lived in California, and you can bury your family on your own property as long as it's this amount away from someone else's property of space. away of space away from like water, natural water sources things like that and they can really help you out with the laws and for every state. The Green Burial Council. Yes, I could say, what's the most rewarding thing that you find about this work. Oh, um, that's tough one because it's all honestly it's also rewarding. I think I got a couple one I think when people let me know that they finish their advanced healthcare directive and had that conversation with their loved ones about what they wanted. In case they couldn't speak for themselves and they had to make decisions towards the end of life, just knowing that you know because I suggested to people all the time I help them fill it out very rarely do people fill it out. I think it's a great time to their, you know, medical provider and follow through and so when people follow through that feels really amazing to know that they're going to get what they want at the end of life their wishes are laid out. I think, and just also when the conversations that we have at death cafes are just so rich, you know, and people there's tears sometimes there's you know people saying I've never had a talk about death with anyone in my life I'm too scared they're too scared. It's, I mean it's all pretty rewarding honestly. Well, like I can imagine that you had just some incredible experiences. I would love to have you back again and talk about this more if you'll be my guest because there's so many things we haven't talked about, like advanced care directives ethical wills and more but I recommend that people go to death cafe Honolulu on the show. And but for now I'm afraid we're going to have to wrap it up. As always, we're just out of time so I wanted to say thank you so much for being a guest on the show again, Leilani and we have been speaking with Leilani Maxera of the death cafe Honolulu. And this is Winston Welch with think tech live out and about streaming show. We thank you for tuning in. We welcome your feedback. We thank our broadcast engineer Eric Kalander and floor manager Haley Kada and J five dollar executive producer puts it all together. I'll see you here every other Monday at three for more of out and about Aloha everyone and Happy New Year.