On the first Monday of every month, a group of strangers gather in a room in Woodstock, Cape Town, in the early evening. A warm glow emanates from a bank of vintage ceiling lights. The parquet floor gleams, supporting a scattering of tables, where people sit in groups of four or five and introduce themselves while waiting for proceedings to begin. A candle flickers atop a small metal skull. On the wall, people are enjoined to write phrases that describe death and dying. They scrawl things like kick the bucket, final curtain, the end, feed the fishes, slipped his moorings and took off her coat. Newcomers are sometimes mildly shocked by this insouciance. Welcome to the Death Café — Mortal Monday. What brings you here tonight? The Death Café’s first gatherings were held in London in 2013. Its founder Jon Underwood, who encouraged people around the world to discuss over tea and cake life and the finality of death, died on June 27 in the UK city. He was 44. His wife said that the cause w...
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