Kirsty Bosley: Sad, serious but never morbid: Take a trip to the Death Café

Like any other cafe, a Death Café is a great place to go and grab a drink and have a natter. Only the conversations are, almost exclusively, about our inevitable expirations.

Is that weird? Or morbid? Because it didn't feel it. It wasn't a great get-together of gloomy goths – it was a gathering of loads of different kinds of people: doctors, journalists, retirees and community workers. All with one big thing in common – we're all headed to the grave. We don't know when yet, or how. But we know we're going, and so we're chatting about it, for Dying Matters Awareness Week.

I'd been invited to the Death Café by an old friend. She works for the Birmingham St Mary's Hospice, and it was her job to encourage people to come along and have open conversations about a subject that many of us still struggle to talk about.

Before I went, I told my friends that I was planning to go along. "That sounds sad," was a popular response. "What the heck is that?", was another. I wasn't sure myself, to be honest. So being a nosy journalist, I had to go.

Death is one of those strange things to talk about. Just go and say to a loved one right now 'let's talk about my funeral'. The most common reaction, I'm willing to bet, is 'oh my God, don't even talk about!'.

We're a superstitious bunch, and for many, even talking about something tempts fate. I've never been that way inclined, so I wasn't nervous about the Death Café. I was just intrigued.

As I got stuck into the cake that may or may not contribute to my future undoing, my friend greeted everyone and told us the rules of the café.

Firstly, she told us that there was no agenda, objective or theme. We weren't there to support one another through grief or to receive counselling. The number one priority was just to chat, openly, in an accessible, respectful and confidential space. And eat cake.

I was joined on my window table by a small group of people that I'd never seen before in my life – men and women of varying ages, professions and cultural backgrounds. We shared worksheets, 'Death Menus', which listed a number of questions to get stuck into.

As a features writer, I've interviewed a great number of people in my career. From worldwide superstars to a girl up the road who paints crockery. But I've never asked a stranger what death means to them before. Or what food they want to have served at their funeral.

I found a few of the questions really difficult to answer, myself. One was 'where do you want to be when you die?'. One person said that they'd like to be at the World Cup Final, watching their team lift the trophy. Another said that they'd like to be with loved ones.

I felt that if I had to list a specific place, that I'd probably feel really upset if I was to die in hospice care in Birmingham, instead of the amazing place that I'd specified. I thought that I was surely setting myself up for failure by answering, so I simply said 'in a state of oblivion, probably'. The less I know about it, the better.

Another question that got us thinking was 'how do you want to be remembered when you die?'. I thought of my late grandad, who died when I was just single digit age. I remember, vividly, the smell of his shed. I'm almost positive that if he'd have been able to answer this very question himself years ago, he'd have wanted to be remembered for more than the smell of his shed. . . I wasn't doing very well at this Death Café.

Instead I said that I wanted to be remembered as an ethical, truthful and entertaining journalist. Memories of me won't be limited to what other people can recall in their brain. They'll be able to scroll through my 22,000 tweets, or find old photos on MySpace. They'll be able to come to the Star archives and find these very columns. The PRESSURE!

It was so interesting to hear how other people's cultures, religions and family traditions influenced their approach to death. It was, actually, the best café chat I've had in a while.

My favourite part of the Death Café was the huge blackboard that had been secured to the wall. 'BEFORE I DIE, I WANT TO' was printed on it over and over, and visitors were invited to fill in the blank space that followed. I was genuinely touched to see some of the entries.

It was interesting to see how many people expressed their wish to meet their favourite celebrities.

'Kiss David Beckham', one person had written, while another said that they just really hoped to meet David Attenborough some day. Joe Cole, Anjelica Huston and Dave Grohl were also on the wish list.

Others had shared their desires to go to different countries and continents. One person had shared her desire to own a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes and another had said that they wanted to learn to bake a Black Forest gâteau.

I welled up when I read someone's comment that they wanted to 'laugh every day with Anthony Powell' (I don't know who Anthony Powell is, but he seems really lucky). I was also struck when someone said that they wanted to 'put together a funeral plan', and again when someone said simply 'live'.

Though I found many of the questions hard to answer, I think it's great that the St Mary's Hospice staff invited us just to talk about death. We need to stop thinking that it's a bad omen, and instead be cool with the fact that it's coming to us all.