The "Discussing Our Own Death" group, which has been meeting in the Senior Center for over a year. Above, a group tagged along with a separate group for a cemetery tour last summer. (News archive photo by Reilly Dixon)
Dealing with death, once a month
- Published: April 5, 2025
On a recent Saturday, a group of about a dozen gathered around a large table in the Senior Center’s Great Room. The assembled group was friendly and their discussion was lively as they shared personal stories and reflections, punctuated with laughter and, sometimes, the hint of tears.
They were there to talk about something that each of them have in common — that one day, they will die.
The “Discussing Our Own Death” group has been meeting for over a year. Local resident Jill Becker, who leads the group, said the idea for “Discussing Our Own Death” was sparked through the weekly “Dancing with Parkinson’s” classes she leads at the Senior Center. One of the people who attended the classes expressed to Becker a desire to “welcome death with curiosity, not fear.”
“He said, “I want to really be open to the experience,’” Becker said. “So we came up with the idea of a discussion group — and about 17 people came to the first meeting.”
Since then, the group has shifted and settled, grown and shrunk, depending on the month, with some folks attending pretty regularly, and others coming and going. Becker sets aside an hour-and-a-half for the meetings, the flavor and tenor of which can vary depending on who attends from month to month. The meetings — open to anyone — are mostly attended by “older people,” Becker said, but not exclusively.
Becker — whose career background is in dance choreography and arts education — said leading a group like this one was new to her. She’s learned along the way that keeping the floor equally open to everyone — making sure no one person dominates the conversation — is paramount for “Discussing Our Own Death.” And while there’s room for folks to discuss how faith interacts with how they consider death, the group has steered away from centering faith practices. The group’s discussion flows in whatever way best suits its members that day, with “no agenda, and no judgement.”
“We don’t really talk about anything practical,” like end-of life care or making arrangements, Becker said, though those things come up from time to time. Near the end of each meeting, those assembled close their eyes in silence together for about five minutes, thinking about what they’ve heard and talked about.
“You sort of let your mind go where it goes in response — and that can be productive, because something will often bubble up,” Becker said.
Outside of those five minutes, though, there’s no set format for the meetings.
“It’s not a directive or a how-to or anything like that,” she said. “It’s just having a conversation.”
The conversation during the meetings can run the gamut; folks talk about what they’re curious about, what they’re afraid of, what they hope to do with the time they have. They talk about what comes next — if anything — and what might be left behind.
Crucially, Becker said, folks often talk about their experiences with the deaths of others close to them. Initially, she said, there was a thought that “Discussing Our Own Death” should be clear in advertising itself as “not a grief group” — where grieving the deaths of others wouldn’t be brought into discussion.
“But in my experience, that doesn’t work, because when you’re thinking about your own death, you’re also thinking about others,” she said. “Sometimes people do talk about people who have died or who are dying — like we’re all rehearsing when we experience someone else’s death.”
Though she’s the group’s facilitator, Becker said she often takes part in discussions from a personal standpoint, sharing her own thoughts and feelings. Last year, she said, someone close to her was dying, and Becker “misread the situation” regarding the person’s wishes in their final days. Becker said she felt “mortified” on top of her grief — a complex set of feelings she brought before the group.
“I felt like the group was really helpful to me, because people heard me and thought about it,” she said. “And that wasn’t really discussing my own death, but it seems kind of seamless to me.”
After a recent meeting of “Discussing Our Own Death,” a few of the folks who had trekked out in the rain to attend stuck around to chat with the News. Panna Flower and Erin Leigh said they attend regularly. Both shared their own experiences with death in the past, though they said personal losses were not their only motivators for attending.
“Talking about the hard things makes the easier things even easier — but I think it’s necessary for personal growth,” Leigh said. “You have to go ahead and face those things, talk about them and be totally honest with yourself.”
And there’s something about being in a group, they agreed, that can help that honesty to come through with a little more dimension.
“Very often, if you process something difficult by yourself, you end up dithering about it,” Flower said. “If you process it with other people, it almost becomes like a soup — whatever my experience has been, it gets added to, and so the pot grows richer.”
“I feel like I always hear some jewel, some little thing that makes me think, ‘Oh — that’s why I’m here today,’” Becker added, as those still in the Great Room began putting away chairs and preparing to leave. “There’s always something that resonates.”
Slowly heading toward the door, those left in the room acknowledged that they’ll likely never uncover any great mysteries about death — something we’ll all experience only once, and which we won’t be able to report back on once we do. But that’s not really the point, they said.
“The group makes me feel recharged — maybe even validated,” Leigh said. “Or just not alone.”
“Even just acknowledged,” Flower added. “Like: ‘I do exist.’”
“Discussing Our Own Death” meets on the third Saturday of each month, 3:30–5 p.m., in the Senior Center Great Room; meetings are announced in the News’ “Local Events” column and on the Senior Center’s website, ysseniors.org. All are welcome.
Contact: chuck@ysnews.com
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