Every month, people from all walks of life gather to do exactly that over a cup of tea or coffee and snacks in Dunedin and they call it "Death Cafe".
The group met last night at the Dunedin Community House.
Death Cafe Dunedin organiser Anke Buhrfeindt said it was an international movement started by Jon Underwood in the United Kingdom whose mother was a psychotherapist and helped him set it up.
It was for people who were facing death and had fears about it, she said.
"They wanted to create a space for anyone to get rid of what was on their mind, what holds them in and to discuss what makes them afraid."
She said people came for all sorts of reasons.
Some were grieving a loss, some had received a medical diagnosis and others were simply curious about death, including medical students who wanted to get a feel for what their patients might be going through.
There were no topics assigned to the discussions other than death and anything to do with it.
Ms Buhrfeindt said death was a part of life just as much as puberty, pregnancy, menstruation and birth.
However, often in New Zealand culture "we shove it away" when other cultures were a lot more at ease with it.
"I think we can make so much more sense out of life, if we put death in its proper place."
