Let's Talk About Dying

At Death Cafés guests are encouraged to eat cake and discuss the end of their lives

- Marlise Scheepers

CAKES decorated with tombstones, skulls, corps­ es and angels of death – it’s enough to give most people indigestion. Yet the guests tuck into them with relish.

And it’s not just the con­fectionery that’s macabre – the teatime chatter is also decidedly morbid. “Come enjoy a morning of tea, cake and chat about one of the most feared topics,” reads the invitation to the Death Café event hosted by Centurion Hospice in Pretoria.

Death Cafés may be a new concept for Gautengers, but they’re already held in many cities around the world.

Leukaemia sufferer Jon Underwood came up with the idea in 2010. The Brit­ ish man, who died last year aged 44, believed because we’re so scared of death we’ve outsourced all decisions about it to doctors, nurses, priests and under­ takers. The result, he argued, was that we’ve lost control of one of the most sig­nificant events we ever have to face.