When Valerie Lovelace’s sister Diana Grishaber was dying of lung cancer, Lovelace could see there were things that Grishaber needed to talk about. So Lovelace, a holistic practitioner, was there for her.

Those remain some of the most difficult discussions Lovelace, of Westport Island, has ever had. But she knew that was what her younger sister needed in order to not feel alone in what she was going through.

“I just was really fortunate that I recognized there were things she needed to talk about.”

Since Grishaber died in 2009, just after her 49th birthday, Lovelace has thought more about the importance of people being able to talk about their own mortality, and death in general. There are questions about what happens to someone after death, since no one really knows for certain, Lovelace said. And there are the practical questions, such as people’s choices for their bodies’ handling after death.

Death and dying are not as taboo to discuss as they once were, she said. But she wanted people to get more comfortable talking about them. Then she looked into a kind of gathering called a death cafe, where people talk over refreshments.  Her research led her to decide to start a local one. The first, monthly death cafe on Westport Island is Thursday, Sept. 25, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Westport Fire Department.

Lovelace is providing refreshments, and she arranged for the use of the space. But she won’t be making an agenda for the evening. The conversations will emerge from what people are feeling they want to talk about that night, she said.

“I’m actually really looking forward to it,” she said.

Death cafes are not grief support groups, she said, In fact, Lovelace would discourage attendance by anyone who has had a very recent loss. That’s a sensitive time and, since anything could come up at a death cafe, a person who is grieving could become distraught, she said.

But those who come can feel free to bring up deaths that have affected them.

“Loss changes us for the rest of our lives,” Lovelace said. “Life is an accumulation of losses and how we deal with them.”

For anyone on the fence about whether to attend, Lovelace recalled a friend once saying that being interested in living also means being interested in dying.

“It’s part of the process of a full life,” Lovelace said.