I'm heading out to Michigan to spend time with my mother. She's almost 99 and I'm sure to hear her tell me every day: "Jory, I'm so tired of this.  I just want to get 'out of here.’

When I first began to hear this mantra a few years ago, my engineer's mind tried to figure out how I could specifically respond to this apparently heart-felt plea from one I dearly love. 

I thought of getting some sort of 'final pill' from Oregon, where such assistance might be legal.  I also talked with my mother about ceasing to eat, as I remember Scott Nearing did when he had reached a similar age. My many sisters, however, made it abundantly clear that I was getting out of line. So, I began to settle down on the subject, and to resume being one, generally passive, member of our large and diverse family.  

Perhaps my job is simply to listen to my mother, I thought, to love her, and to flow along with a unique and mysterious end-of-life drama that I cannot control or influence.

When I saw that a Death Cafe was to be held in Rockland, I immediately put it on my calendar. Perhaps this type of event, born in England, and held recently in two local towns, would move my process along.   

As I passed the grey, tombstone-shaped placard outside the library, I felt a spooky fear. Wasn't there something more pressing on my calendar this beautiful summer evening?

Inside was a circle of approximately 30 people, almost entirely strangers.   

Our convener, Peter Lindquist, with little ado, launched us into an hour-long circumnavigation of that circle.  The stories, fears, anticipations poured out with little hesitation.  Each one let us examine more closely a piece of the puzzle that every human must assemble or avoid. What a gold mine! 

I've recently been trying to perfect a foreign language I speak well, and this 'death language'  had a similar fascination and frustration. Many people gathered here were quite fluent.   

One woman, though she felt there was no definitive 'operator's manual' for the support of a dying person, had encountered the "crossings.net" community. 

Their support had allowed her to gently and respectfully transform her caring process.  I wondered if my large and stiff Episcopalian family, who plan to call in the professionals at the very instant of death, could ever shift in this direction. Yet, I envied this woman's empowerment and the completeness of her grieving process. 

Another in the circle, a man, was fearful of the bodily changes which might follow physical death. How embarrassing they might be.  

I'm sure this concern, this unknown, lies behind many of our decisions. 

Sitting next to me was a bright, well-groomed, 40-ish woman, who, when her turn came, began talking with total aplomb about her terminal diagnosis and pending death. She was clear, strong, and shifted easily between occasional cheerfulness and speaking through a mist of strong feeling. I kept doing a double-take. This strange fluency was shaking my social conventions. Yet like a moth to a flame, I felt pulled into her orbit. I wanted just these qualities.  

After a break for refreshments, we again spoke in turn, this time planning our own funerals. We discovered how some of us were comforted by traditional forms, while a majority favored more spontaneity, and even unedited storytelling.  We hungered for catharsis: some sort of quiet shift toward acceptance.

I discovered that, contrary to my professed indifference, I actually had lots of thoughts and feelings about funerals.  As before, through sharing we were developing ease and fluency amid a minefield of social taboos.

After some goodbyes,  while leaving the building, I passed the same tombstone on my way to the car.  This time there was no spookiness. I had braved the Death Cafe, and I was keen to come again.   

Jory Squibb lives in Camden.