Jon Underwood, Founder of the Website Death Cafe, Has Died

John Underwood
Credit:deathcafe.com

Jon Underwood, the founder of the website Death Cafe, died suddenly from acute promyelocytic leukemia on June 27, 2017, at the age of 44.  The father of two was an influential figure in the end-of-life arena, carrying on the work of Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz, who founded the death cafe movement in 2004.

Underwood became involved in promoting the concept of death cafes after reading a report about Crettaz’s “cafés mortels” in 2010. Inspired, he soon held a death cafe at his home in the London borough of Hackney in the United Kingdom. Not long afterwards, he created his website, and death cafes took off across the globe. As of 2017,  there have been over 4,823 death cafes held in 51 countries, on every continent except Antarctica.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a death cafe is an informal get-together where people, often strangers, gather to talk about death “over tea and cake.” According to Jon’s website, their objective is “to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” The meetings are unstructured, with no agenda, no “message,” and no restrictions about what can be shared.

Jon also managed the website Funeral Advisor in partnership with the Natural Death Center, a registered charity in the U.K.

According to his good friend and colleague, Louise Winter, Jon funded his work solely from his own savings and occasional freelance jobs. Recently, he had begun actively fundraising to help pay his bills and keep the websites alive. Jon’s mother, Sue Barsky Reid, and sister, Jools Barsky, plan to continue his work.

Jon’s friends have set up a crowdfunding campaign to help his wife and two children with their current and future financial needs. You can read more about the campaign or make a contribution on JustGiving.com