Kay Kearns wants to talk about death.
The Slane woman, and former SIPTU officer, is hosting Navan’s first ever ‘Death Cafe’ in the Ardboyne hotel next Thursday between 7.30 and 9pm, and when she opens up about her own experiences it is easy to see why,
Kay told Meath Live, ‘When I was just a child my father, Martin, had a bad fall at work and there was a real concern whether or not he would survive, my aunt took me and my brother to see a corpse so that if dad died his wouldn’t be the first dead body we seen.
‘Thankfully dad pulled through and lived a full life but over the years my brother Derek was killed in a car crash I lost my son and my mother died during Covid, so as you can see I am well versed in coping with death.
‘When my mother died she was in a nursing home and I couldn’t even visit I was outside the window looking in, I didn’t get to hold her hand as she was dying, and I’d be the type who asks, ‘what can I learn ?’ from any life experience.
‘From all the deaths I learned that sometimes we don’t want to face the reality that all die eventually and basically I realised that if we put as much thought into our final rite of passage as we do into other things it would take fear out of death.
‘Basically a Death Cafe is where people can meet and discuss all aspects of death and dying. It probably sounds a bit morbid but in fact it is anything but.’adds Kay.
