LONDON — Jon Underwood, who as the founder of the Death Cafe here encouraged people around the world to discuss, over tea and cake, life, the finality of life and why we fear it, died on June 27 in London. He was 44.

His wife, Donna Molloy, said that the cause was a brain hemorrhage from acute promyelocytic leukemia. His death was sudden, she said; his leukemia had not been diagnosed.

Mr. Underwood was working as a strategy and business development director for the council of Tower Hamlets, a London borough, when he came across an article about the so-called cafe mortels — which were events rather than places — started in 2004 by Bernard Crettaz, a Swiss sociologist.

As a Buddhist, Mr. Underwood had already contemplated the philosophical questions of dying. Although everyone experiences it, he felt, the topic seemed so taboo that no one wanted to discuss it.