First, that where possible, graves should be re-used and deepened. Now calm down! Everything will only be done with your consent. And it happens all over the world. We could call it The After Party option! Besides, after a couple generations, who actually visits the grave? The ground becomes what industry insiders called ‘sterile.’

Eco-friendly options, natural burial parks, niche walls for ashes, aquamation etc. are all going to be encouraged. I swear, now is a good time to get into the burial business. Demand is only increasing. And choice demands it. It’s all about time, I think. And it’s happening fast, which is great.   
Next, all those rogue undertakers are going to be under increased scrutiny. Apparently, of the 634 undertakers on the city database (I counted), only a fraction are fully compliant. In truth, I’ve heard it said that many are no more than event organisers, who outsource the difficult work to others, and behave like tow-truck drivers on the scene of a death.

There have been some torrid breaches in recent years, like the case of the eleven families whose loved ones who were told they’d been cremated, but instead buried in pauper’s graves at Welmoed Cemetery. Petrus Booysen of St. Francis Funerals is the dude you want to avoid here. Ah-leggedly!! He was arrested twice and released for lack of evidence (nice!), and the cops still haven’t done anything for the two years since the families got ashes of… who, exactly? By the way, it’s the Dept. of Home Affairs who need to regulate these shysters, not the city. 

The draft policy revamps the Burial or Cremation of Destitute Persons Policy (2015) with a dedication to provide consistent and equitable funeral assistance to indigent or vulnerable families who cannot afford standard costs. You guessed it. That sentence was so boring I asked AI to write it. But it’s a huge issue. Our unclaimed dead. I’ve spoken with an undertaker who is on contract to provide dignified funerals for unidentified people, and it makes me proud of this City, to be honest.   

Lastly, there is a commitment to strengthening both the management and protection of cemeteries, and an overhaul of the IT systems that ensure accurate public tracking of burial and cremation data. Presently, many of the systems are not linked. So the likes of Mr Booysen can’t sign off on documents that they’re not supposed to, and the City doesn’t accept them either. Here, staffing and skills peep over the headstone. Also a good time to acquire the skills necessary for what the technocrati refer to as ‘the death value chain.’ 

It’s going to cost a bomb. Like, R250 mil or so. Yeah, don’t quote me. I have a mole in the mayor’s office. A big chunk of that is to rehabilitate the lousy land that new cemeteries will be constructed in, like the one next to a dump in Tafelsig. We don’t want our gravediggers having to chop through old shopping trollies and smashed kitchen tiles. 

This is not a ‘nice to have.’ It’s a must-have. Sections of our population abhor the idea of cremation, and that’s a problem for our burial space. Unlike Singapore, which ran out of space for the dead, then started running out of space for the living. The government there just sommer banned burial in 1973, and dug everyone up from over 70 (some very large) cemeteries and cremated them. Listen to incredible tale on 99% Invisible – https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/singapore/

Our relationship with our dead is about to become a whole lot more intimate. I think that’s a good thing, and time to rethink how we treat them. Seems like it’s only when someone dies that you will find out what happens.
Why not before?  

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In David’s lounge was a massive cat castle, one of those carpeted multi-layer abominations you see in the windows of pet shops. A poky space-eater. David is kind, gentle, appears to be in his mid-thirties. A compassionate man. Vaguely employed. 

And here was Monica, stepping from behind the fridge, big-eyed, a slight olive pallor, a tad withdrawn, apprehensive. She didn’t look as ill as I’d expected, but still. She’s just thirty-four. Three kids. Divorced. What a shit show. 

It’s usual in these situations that one party wants my support, and another is resistant. One of the people is doing their best, the other just putting one foot in front of the other. People want the best for those they love, and the loved one often doesn’t want the attention, doesn’t want to ‘be a burden,’ or is simply wary. 

My stance is to try and just be just myself. Express peace and acceptance and ease. Let them decide if they trust me. I am not selling myself to anyone, in this most sensitive of spaces, but simply showing up, and shutting up, and listening. Pretty much.

We sat in the lounge. I was offered some hot chocolate, and it came, like, real hot chocolate from melted dark chocolate! I nearly died right then and there. 

One of the perks of my role as a death coach (why not? We have life coaches, not so?) is to ask some rather blunt questions. Not immediately, of course. But things like: What do you still need to say to your children? And your ex? And your mother? What do you need to forgive in yourself? 

Yes, moving stuff. Bring out the tiny violins! I see it as my duty to go to these places and ask things directly.[1] Monica’s kids were the main focus of our conversation, and the wellspring of many tears that day. And their friendship, these two, David and Monica. We spent about two hours together in the lounge. We got deep! Monica told me about the letters she was writing her kids, and how she was so upset because her trust fund was finally maturing and she’d bought a house and now her douchebag of an ex-husband would likely inherit it or at least live in it with her kids. What a douche!! That she was finally ready to live, after all the shit she’d been through, and must now die. A seesaw of a life. There was lots of anger, lots of sighing, and all sorts of other emotions. 

I left feeling that I had been privy to a special and unique relationship, which, even if the boundaries felt a little fuzzy – they were exes, but what was really going on? – well, that was justified, under the circumstances. She was dying. They were very fond of each other. I put myself at their disposal. David paid me even before I got home. 

And that night, he asked me to come again – would I? Some useful things had come up in our time together, he said, which merited further attention. How to set things up with the school, for example, and find reliable and sustainable allies there? I can’t remember what else he said.  

I returned a few days later, after Monica had been in hospital for a complication in her treatment. This time we spoke very practically, about meds and side effects and specific plans. This time, when David offered to walk me out, Monica intervened. “I’ll go with him,” said. 

And so we found ourselves together in the lobby, for the first time without David.  

“I need to tell you something,” she said. “I’m really worried about him. Even though I’m dying, I’ll be fine. But he really needs help. He’s the one who’s falling apart.” 

A few days passed. That weekend, Monica was in touch with me repeatedly, as I’d said she could use WhatsApp to let me know how she was feeling. No charge for being available, even though David had wanted to pay me more for this accessibility. 

He had a new girlfriend, and this was hard for Monica. They all drove off to Cape Point, stopping in Simonstown at The Sweetest Thing.[2]  Monica was seething in the back seat. She wrote to me while they went inside. She’d been wanting to smash things, was very angry. Jealous. Felt black and grey and cold and terrible. 

That night, or the next, she continued her conversation with me, and I gently told her that her feelings were natural, and to use me to help process them. Or something like that. 

(At this point in the story, I’m tempted to ask what you think will happen next?) 

A couple of days later, late evening, Monica texted me. Are you ok, she asked. She’d seen Sunshine parked outside the block of flats and knew that I had children of my own to support. She said I was a good person and didn’t deserve to struggle. Not that I’d said anything. She turned the tables on me! Would you object to me leaving you some money in my will? 

Come again? I waited.  

She continued. I’m just finalising my arrangements and although I don’t know you well you have been such a comfort to me and David. And I know you’ll continue to look after him once I’m gone, which means so much to me. I love him so much. I just want to do some good while I’m still in this world. 

At this point I wondered if karma wasn’t planning a gold-spangled visit. I mean, I know I’m an incredible dude, and that the universe could well bestow some largesse on me. In fact, it should! And I’ve been very patient! Yet somehow my very dim ethical lightbulb weakly flashed. No, I said, I’ve already been paid by David, and, honestly, I don’t need anything else. 

Would 500,000 Rand make a difference, she asked.

Well. Did I really not need anything else? 

Let’s talk about this tomorrow, I said, as visions of what I would do with half a million bucks flooded my tiny brain. All night. And into my walk in the morning. If she wanted to give it, why not? Didn’t I deserve it, for the sacred work I do? I felt conflicted. 

When I returned from my morning walk there was a message from David. I’m really worried, he said. Monica went in for a treatment yesterday but when I called to arrange to pick her up her phone was dead and then I called the hospital they said she wasn’t there. He said that he’d remembered that earlier in the week there had been some problem with her medical aid and she’d gone to Somerset, a public hospital. So he had called there, where she had been admitted. But when he spoke with a doctor there about her, she seemed confused by questions about Monica’s cancer. So he called her oncologist but there was no answer. And called the number she’d given him for her aunt to find out where she was but again no answer… Something was off. And her work… but they did not know who she was.

Then my phone rang. It was Monica. 

Or rather, her husband. Karl. 

He was at the end of his tether. The first thing he told me was that they weren’t divorced. And that he was with their three kids, trying to look after them while Monica came and went, sometimes for days at a time. She sometimes came home to take photographs of furniture to sell on Facebook Marketplace, and sometimes sold it but gave a wrong address after receiving the cash. He knew all about David, admitting he’d had a problem with it at first but no longer cared.   

I’ve got her phone which David gave her, he said. I went to fetch her from the hospital but they’re keeping her until tonight. I’ve seen all the messages she’s sent you and I’m horrified. And I’ve looked at all her Google searches, for over-the-counter medication to make you appear sick enough to warrant concern. 

She doesn’t have cancer. 

She’s a liar. She’s sick. She’s insane. She’s a human wrecking ball. She destroyed my parents’ marriage. She got between them and turned them against each other. They both live in different towns today because of her. She’s been kicked out of her family, no-one talks to her anymore. I don’t know what to do. Should I even fetch her later?

We spoke for an age. We spoke about the children, mainly, and ways to keep them safe. The poor dude had used up most of his credit with family and friends. But he found someone who could help. We resolved to check in later. 

And then my thoughts turned to David. I called. He didn’t pick up.

I was in Sunshine again when he replied. I pulled over. The truth was dawning and he needed someone to corroborate what he had discovered. David was stunned, bereft. I was the one to confirm for him that it had all been a lie. Months and months long. He told me about the money he’d lent her for her treatments, which she was going to pay him back as soon as the trust fund was sorted. In fact, she was going to leave him some more money in her will, wasn’t she? 

She’d always have these meetings at Investec that were cancelled at the last minute, he said. I could see how much pain she was in, how much she wanted to live. Of course I lent her the money. 

To protect David’s confidentiality, I will not tell you how much she took him for. Let’s just say it was a crippling amount. 

I spoke with Karl again that evening, after his kids were asleep. Monica was too, in the spare room. He asked me how he could leave her. I gave him some clear ideas, I think. But she’s the mother of my children, he said. What should I do? 

I realized that I was unable to help him any further. We spoke again, once or twice. Then he asked to borrow some money. Game over.   

A week later David came out to see me. He needed to process what had happened, and basically, find a way to forgive himself. He and his family had decided not to pursue Monica though the courts. It would be expensive to do so. Besides, she had nothing, had spent the money. On what, who knows? Beauty products, food, school fees. Blueberries. 

He told me that she had gone to such lengths of deception that she’d manufactured an access card for the firm she allegedly worked at, with a lovely logo and her name. Left it lying where he could see it. So that was the place he’d called. And yes, she knew all the people there, she’d researched them online. Abdul is being such a bastard, she’d tell David. He’s the worst manager ever. He knows about my illness but doesn’t care!!

On reflection, she may well have been thinking to line me up, when she made that offer of 500k. You’ll get it after I die and it won’t be long Sean!

[1] Some clients seem to want answers… but the way I see it, my job is to help you ask the questions you need to ask yourself but might be afraid to. I like to think I don’t have answers, despite being an insufferable know-it-all. But I don’t know what happens in the afterlife, or if it even exists.  
[2] The Sweetest Thing. Patisserie. As you enter Simonstown. Do. Not. Miss.  

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I can tell you right now, almost ¾ into David Foenkinos’ latest, called Happy Life, that it’s flippen’ great, containing a favourite author’s trademark wit, insight, drollery and sublimely imagined thought experiments. (I was first attracted to Foenkinos after coming across the delectably entitled The Erotic Potential of my Wife. Which is good, but not as good as some of his others, especially Delicacy, Second Place (about the kid who nearly played Harry Potter, a work of fiction) and the remarkably enjoyable The Martins. 

Our protagonist in Happy Life is Eric Kherson, a 40-year-old marketing director who has climbed the rungs at Decathlon, the famous French sporting goods retailer. (The book is translated from the French. I’m a slut for translated fiction, it’s true. It’s like there’s another layer of the foreign world you slip into, as a reader.) 

Anyway, Eric is divorced, has a poor relationship with his late teenager son, and kinda going through the motions at work. He’s then headhunted by an old school acquaintance called Amélie Mortiers, who hires him for a job in government trade. He’s hot shit, they go off to South Korea for a bit pitch with Samsung, and the wheels come off. His meltdown is as mysterious as it is plausible.

How? On a whim, he visits a ‘funeral experience’ venue called Happy Life, has to write a eulogy, lie in a closed coffin, and has a reckoning with his mortality. Everything changes for our Eric! His relationships – like the fractious one he has with his mother – and the distant one with his son, change radically. The relationship with his ex-wife, a doctor working in a hospital during Covid, is bloody well done, tantalising at the edge of some very adult questions in characteristically pithy fashion. Man this guy can write! Very little artifice though, so you’ll be disappointed if you like velvet ropes with those swooshy bits on the end in your fiction. 

Then our hero Eric boldly opens a new venture, based on his experience, and is incredi

At that’s as far as I am! 

Anything by DK is great. This one is all about the perspective you gain from a reckoning with your own impermanence, and your tiny little place in the great scheme of things. But it’s never preachy, DK doesn’t do that, he’s too smart and knows you are too. There may well be a poetic twist later on. Amélie has just re-entered the scene. Which is exciting. Is she still having a tough time in her marriage with Laurent? Does she still work for the French Government? What does she think of the way Eric let her down so badly in Korea all those years ago, and will her feelings change? With DK, you are always in the hands of a writer who is unafraid to explore the curious ‘what if’s’ of life, and thus never sure where the story will go. 

Other writers’ books I adore and have actually finished who are a little like this (also Frenchies in translation, naturellement)

• Georges Simenon – Monsiour Monde Vanishes (Fabulous tale of the executive who impulsively decides not to go to his factory, and goes to Marseille instead, without telling a soul. Trivia: Our man Georges penned 197 novels in his own name in his lifetime, and around 200 pulp titles under pseudonyms. Not too shabalab!
• Pascal Garnier – How’s the Pain? (A terminally ill hitman with chronic stomach pain ponders death during a road trip on his last job. Pascal Garnier! Noir masterpieces abound, once you start with him you’ll have to read them all. Read ‘Why the F*ck aren’t you reading Pacal Garnier here.)
• Antoine Laurain – Smoking Kills (satirical comedy about a dude who gives up smoking only to discover that only murder can deliver the same chemical rush. This was my first Laurain novel, my fave is The President’s Hat. Which you will love and if you don’t best let’s not speak for a while.)

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They are the ones locked into bitter retribution, and the victims of their own bloodlust. Those 52% of them who still believe in capital punishment, according to a Gallup poll. Perhaps the other 48% will be taking solace from the fact that Christa Pike’s name will ring long and loud in the annals of capital punishment. 

You’ll know her as the unfortunate murderess who was the subject of two consecutive ‘botched’ execution attempts in Tennessee, US of A, on the 30th of October. Forty minutes after receiving her second 5g dose of pentobarbital, (which suppresses cerebral function and the central nervous system, halting respiration and resulting in cardiac arrest due to a lack of oxygenation), she could be heard snoring. At the time of writing, several days later, she is awake and talking to her lawyers, after being in critical condition. Not much else is known. Except that she’s shackled to the bed right now.   

The yahoos in Tennessee and other nutjobs will say, so what? She deserves to die, and you’d guess they’d still come after her now if they could. But does she deserve to suffer? Is torture part of the program? Besides being on the gurney for that intravenous process which has now failed twice, she’s been in solitary confinement for thirty years in an 8×10 foot cell, only recently being allowed to consort with other female prisoners. She’s been on death row for three decades. Try that one on for size. 

The Governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, denied her clemency after a 226-page clemency petition detailed a history of sexual abuse and other mitigating factors.  Bill has never granted clemency. His score is 0-9. Go Bill! 

Christa was raped repeatedly between the ages of two and five by Ernest Johnson, her grandmother’s boyfriend; then again aged 11 by 37-yr old neighbour Claude Davis, who was given a suspended sentence and allowed back home, and at 17, after being attacked by a stranger and dragged into the woods, after which she  provided a rape kit.) Her grandmother engineered a year’s long campaign of domestic violence against her. She also suffered grave mental illness. Yet none of this was presented at her trial. She was 18. None of it. Neither was her age presented as a factor, nor her absence of a criminal record.Sandra Babcock, of the Cornell Centre on the Death Penalty Worldwide, quoted in the Guardian, said that “if they execute Christa Pike, it will confirm that the death penalty is reserved not for the worst of the worst, but the most damaged and vulnerable among us.” Most people on death row in the US have profound mental health issues and have suffered sustained sexual and other forms of abuse.      

What kind of country kills its people? If you take an eye for eye, soon everyone will be blind. It is barbaric. And has never been a deterrent. Ironically, the death penalty basically tells a population that it’s ok to kill. 

Notwithstanding that many innocent people have been wrongfully convicted and killed anyway. It’s called murder. Much like what Trump and his gang of criminals are perpetrating in the Pacific and Caribbean, under the guise of targeting alleged drug-smuggling – without any public evidence. 221 killed so far. Now that’s what I call success!  

Someone I was chatting with about this last night said, Oh but Christa Pike killed someone very violently. So… What? Exactly? Does her own death bring her victim back alive? Why double the death count? May Martinez, the murder victim Colleen Slemmer’s mother, and her husband, travelled to Tennessee to witness the execution. They too are miffed. What were they hoping for, after thirty years? For someone else to give them some closure? I feel genuinely sorry for them.  

Incidentally, Christa’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, was her accomplice in the act, and carved a pentagram into the victim’s corpse. He was 17 – so, got life in prison. His first parole hearing, in 2025, was denied. 

Was what Christa Pike did as an immature 18-year old the action of a sane person? Clearly not. She’s had thirty years to reflect. Is she reformed? It seems so, from what I have read. Her petition to Governor Lee states that she is ‘thoughtful, even-tempered, bright, funny and hopeful.’ No more. 

Missing the vein on an intravenous attempt to kill someone, as is surmised here, means the drug went into her arm tissue. The reduced amount of oxygen delivered to her brain during the two attempts and possibly also while in critical condition for the past week may have permanent effects. Who knows? 

Christa Pike’s life and fucked-up execution will bring the barbarity of the death sentence under close scrutiny, as well as Tennessee’s egregious Prison chief, Frank Strada, who has overseen five botched executions across two states in the last four years. Go Frank! Apparently he’s just resigned. 

But I’m not sure it will change things. 

Tennessee now have someone on their hands that they could not kill. What do they do? They have halted all executions, for now. Let’s hope it’s permanent. Perhaps her life, and death, will not be in vain. There seems to be a national sense of revulsion and introspection happening in the UK according to the Guardian’s chief US correspondent, Ed Pilkington. 

And now, Mad Pete Hegseth, the US ‘Governor of War,’ says we will be able witness a live webstream of an execution via firing squad on at 13h00 EST on 3 December, of Nidal Hasan, the former army psychiatrist who shot and killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. 

Seen any good executions lately? I mean, have you ever? As an index of depravity, just when you thought the Maga bros couldn’t sink any further, live streamed executions set a new low. The 52% of Americans, according to Gallup, who approve of the death penalty will probably tune in. I wonder if there will be an ad break? For what? McDonalds selling you your last happy meal? 

Our governments, I believe, should take the lead in teaching us morality. Help us learn that forgiveness is the ultimate virtue. That sitting with the cancer of blame and hatred serves no one. But it’s so rare. Locally, we have the wonderful Biehl family to demonstrate what compassion really means. And while we might not all be capable of this, surely it’s worth striving for.

Sources: Guardian, BBC, New York Times

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What do you like most about your job?
Well, it’s so unique, but also so essential. And fascinating with the diversity of the people we serve here in Cape Town, and so satisfying knowing that we can serve all of our citizens.  

Choose one item you’d like to be cremated with? (It doesn’t even have to belong to you!)
Sorry! I can’t think of anything! I’d like to be cremated in cardboard to minimise my environmental impact. We try not to include any items or materials that impede the cremation, especially anything toxic like plastics. So with as little as possible.  

Given your insider knowledge, if you had to be buried in a public cemetery in Cape Town, where would it be, and why? 
If I had to be buried, then Plumstead. Close to home and where I grew up, it’s beautiful and has some nice trees, it’s small and safe too. 

What’s the strangest burial or cremation request you’ve heard or tried to accommodate?
It’s mainly about cultural beliefs. Once, a twin, one of two brothers, asked that he could be actually inside the grave in Khayelitsha cemetery to receive the coffin. Quite difficult logistically, even if it’s traditionally done in a Muslim burial, where two or three people receiving a shrouded body. There have been some other strange requests. The person who wanted a transparent glass coffin. And someone being buried in an animal hide…  

What do people most misunderstand about cemeteries, do you think? Or, what’s the thing that you keep needing to explain to people?
I think the most common thing that people need to get explained to them is the type of grave that they’re choosing. People don’t understand what a public grave means, namely, that someone else unrelated can be buried on top of you after five years. It won’t be yours in perpetuity, and you can’t memorialise it. If you want a big coffin and a headstone, you need a private cemetery. 

Tell us about a moment when you thought, “I can’t believe this is part of my job!”
Once I felt I was really going the extra mile when I tried to help a Jewish gentleman who was opposed to cremation a way to bury his dog. He said his dog was also Jewish. I tried very hard. But the dog died on my third day of looking, and he’d put it in his deep freeze while I was waiting. A friend eventually allowed him to bury his dog in a back yard. There’s clearly a need for a pet cemetery here in Cape Town.  

Ideally, how would you like to go, do you think?
Suddenly, unexpectedly, in my old age, without leaving my children without any medical bills. I don’t want to be kept alive for any length of time. 

Anything you still want to achieve in this short life?
I’d like to continue to serve, beyond my retirement which is looming… So let’s see. I don’t want to do nothing in my later years, I just want to be useful and not let my family take too much advantage of me! 

How would you like to be remembered?
I’d like to be remembered for the work I’ve done and the positive changes I’ve managed to achieve during my lifetime, especially to do with the critical shortage of burial space in Cape Town, South Africa and globally. And of course to be remembered as a good mother and grandmother to my grandchildren.

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