A SAFE PLACE AT THE DEATH CAFE
by Shelly Schoeneshoefer
Adrienne Wright Bulow, a certified death doula, and her colleague Sabrina Görlitz have led several wonderful get-togethers where a group has discussed what the meaning of grief is and how we process it in our everyday lives. In fact this often-taboo topic has truly become an important one, especially since we ourselves are aging and becoming more reflective about the meaning of our lives and those around us.
My father said that he truly was the greatest and said that my mother and he had loved to dance to his songs. On the eve of my mother’ s funeral, my father danced around the kitchen, and I had the feeling my mother was dancing right alongside him. This was an evening that will stay in my mind for years to come.
At the last Death Cafe meeting, a small group talked about the loss of family members. The start of this year for me was quite difficult, since I lost not only my mother but also a very close friend, our AWCH member Carol Battenfeld.
After attending my mother’ s funeral, I noticed that, while my sibling were grieving, they had forgotten that my father was also grieving. They had assumed that because he wasn’ t crying, he didn’ t feel the loss of our mother. Everyone grieves in different ways. Perhaps because my father is now heading towards ninety-four and says he can hear the steps of time ringing in his ears, he sees life from a very different perspective. He said that he gets caught up in the memories of years gone by. Before the funeral, all he wanted was a CD of Little Richard. So I went to every vintage music and Good Will shop looking for that magical CD, with no luck. I finally returned to one of my favorite shops, Black and Read, and manage to inspire the entire team to search for that CD.
After two hours, the cool hippie dude smiled and said“ Here it is, the one and only CD in our store.” My father and I had recently seen a documentary on the singer, and my dad had bitterly said that Little Richard truly was the king of rock n’ roll, and not Elvis. It is hard to believe that he never won a Grammy and, in 1985, a presenter said as much. Little Richard was finally recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993.
Photo by Crisoforo Gaspar Hernandez on Unsp
14 HAMBURG HAPPENINGS