May Death Cafe – Walk and Talk

About this event

Join Lakewood for our monthly Death Café. To celebrate the start of spring, we’re featuring a walk and talk session for our May Death Café. Instead of our traditional indoor, seated Death Cafe, we’ll get outside to enjoy a group-guided leisurely stroll around Lakewood’s historic grounds. Inspire new conversations sparked by the beautiful markers, buildings, tree canopy, and landscape at Lakewood.

Following the model developed by Jon Underwood, the Death Café allows our community members to gather together and discuss death. The goal of this monthly gathering is to provide a safe and comfortable space to ask those difficult questions and become more comfortable with living in the presence of death and dying. 

This is a casual free-flowing discussion group that is guided by attendees, though the host will be ready with talking points we encourage you to join us with any thoughts, questions, or ideas for the group to discuss.

There are no predetermined topics or themes.

Attendees are encouraged to guide the conversation however feels most natural, and interject with other thoughts and topics as needed. The hosts will intentionally step back unless more guidance or topics are needed.

Please note: This is not an end-of-life planning event, bereavement group, or grief counseling event – it is a discussion group for topics related to death and dying. This event will cover topics that may be difficult to discuss, but we hope this event will provide a safe and respectful space for our community to come together, share their thoughts, and encourage discussion on the universal topic of death.

Our moderators are also not Lakewood staff or representatives so they will not be able to help with Lakewood-specific questions. For answers to those questions, please connect with our Family Services Team by emailing info@lakewoodcemetery.org or calling 612-822-2171.

About your guide

Your guide, Christin Ament, provides grief and end-of-life support as a death doula and palliative care and hospice provider. She was trained in Taiwan by Buddhist Monks on Cha-Dao, the art of Tea, and has led tea ceremonies around the globe. 

The Lakewood Garden Mausoleum

This event will take place in the upper level reception space of our beautiful Garden Mausoleum. Signs will be posted directing you to the event location or click here for GPS navigation through Google Maps.

Walking Pace and Length

The pace and length will be determined by the attendees, however it will likely be about a half mile of leisurely walking. We hope to keep this at a slow and leisurely pace to encourage conversation. Please note, there will likely not be an opportunity to sit for the duration of this event.

Rain Plan

In the event of rain, we will move the conversation inside of the Garden Mausoleum for a traditional Death Cafe discussion.

The Lakewood Heritage Foundation

This event is sponsored in part by the Lakewood Heritage Foundation, which supports educational programming and the preservation and restoration of Lakewood’s landscape, art, architecture and public spaces—for the benefit of all.

Questions? Call the Lakewood events line at 612-540-5165 or email to events@lakewoodcemetery.org