Photo by Victoria Hernandez.
Once a month, except when the A.C. is off in the summer time, the Dallas Public Library’s Hampton-Illinois Branch Black Box Theater hosts people meeting to talk about death.
Inside a circle of red chairs sit about nine participants in The Oak Cliff Death Cafe, a regular gathering that has been meeting since January 2024. Death Cafes are part of a larger global organization, described as a ‘social franchise,’ that was developed for strangers to gather, eat cake, drink tea and discuss death.
The cafe is facilitated by 20-year Oak Cliff resident Tammy McNary, a local death doula and founding member of Death Collective North Texas.
“Somehow I was always the person that people talked to about death from the time I was a child,” McNary said. “And now it’s just more so because I have this label as someone who does death work.”
Following the experience of her dad’s death 10 years ago, McNary was on the hunt for a way to process her grief.
“It was a really sad experience, and I wish that I would have had somebody there who could have supported me and my family… somebody there who could have shown some ways that would have been helpful for us to navigate different things happening at that time,” she said.
Luckily, while listening to a podcast she heard the term “death doula,” and immediately went on the search to discover what that meant. During the pandemic, McNary decided to take the End-of-Life Training provided through the International End of Life Doula Association online and later began volunteering with a local nonprofit hospice.
As a retired public school teaching artist, McNary then started her private death doula practice, True Death Experience, about three years ago, where she fell deeply in love with the work.
“In the beginning, I didn’t know how it would unfold,” she said. “But so much of it is sitting and just holding space for people and helping them navigate some of the complexities around death and advocating for them and helping them find their way.”
During the cafe, McNary sits with a cup of tea in hand and a slice of cake at her feet listening intently as people share experiences within the circle. One participant describes an instance where she wishes there was more guidance on caregiving for loved ones as they age. Another describes being fired from her job after missing a work meeting to find her missing mother.
“They’re all kind of different depending on who the people are that are there,” she said, speaking of her experiences of death cafes. “We might talk about end-of-life care or what kind of funeral somebody wants, or what their final disposition is going to be.”
Her profession as a death doula and her role in the cafes not only supports her own curiosity to face mortality, but supports the community as well.
Chiming in when needed to discuss solutions for these concerns during the cafe, McNary also asks about participants’ family members by name and shares hugs after the meeting of tender topics wraps up. The group is more than just strangers, they are friends that met by talking about death and dying.
“I’m happy for that, and I’m glad to be that person for people, for the general public, because to me that means that if I’ve done that for somebody, then I’ve told them that it’s okay,” she said.
“It’s okay to talk about death and dying. And maybe in turn, they’ll make it okay to talk about it with somebody else.”