As reported in the OC Register, I brought the pages of my book, Parting Ways, alive upon lighting a candle for my mother, and then for my father at a table covered in votive candles. I wasn’t in a church, or a funeral home.
In fact, I prepared for my life celebration, a tribute to the release of my book Parting Ways: New Rituals and Celebrations of Life’s Passing, in a candlelit lounge at AnQi Restaurant, where my brother, Ryan Carson is the Chef. Most people wait until after their death for family, friends and colleagues to gather to praise a life mission accomplished.
Parting Ways is a culmination of my personal journey: first with my father’s passing in a hospital and later with my mother participating in a living wake with friends and family at home. I was 26 then, my brother was 19. These experiences led me as a journalist to explore how families all over the U.S. were reinventing their roles at the deathbed. We were learning ways to change the wrenching hours at the end of life with a new set of rituals that give us a way to participate. This brings back intimacy, dignity and celebration to an isolated, institutionalized occasion. Nine out of 10 Americans wish to take their end of life journey at home. Few do because we don’t know how.
Since we often encounter discomfort in talking about death, I’ve created an innovative guide, a map into the unknown territory to prepare yourself, your parent, your spouse, your sibling, your child, your friend or your colleague.
I opened the door to the Q Lounge at AnQi to greet my family, life-long friends, colleagues, my college professors, some of the individuals and families who I met along the way in writing the book such as Donna Miller, a life review guide who video records hospice patients sharing their story at Hospice Care of the West, Juanita Marquez Kelley’s family who had a vigil after her last breath at home, and Ron Wikstrom who invited me to report how his wife, Carol Ann prepared for her funeral at home like a wedding with the help of a death midwife here in Santa Ana.
I asked each guest to take a moment to pause and reflect as they entered.
“Light a candle for someone you love and want to remember,” I said. One by one, the flames danced above the white candles evoking the physical presence of those absent. I learned from the death midwives and death doulas I followed on my journey that any space can be hallowed even the deathbed using simple elements such as candlelight.
At the Reminiscing Corner, Jay Gianukos, a life story documentary filmmaker, who I interviewed in the book at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, video recorded the reflections guests had while lighting the candle. Like he does at many life celebrations and in the one in my book, Jay used the video camera as a focusing lens and permission for guests to surface meaningful thoughts and feelings.
With the candles lit, reflections recorded, as the Master of Ceremony at my own celebration, I took the microphone to thank the An Family, introduce my book and my brother Chef Ryan Carson who created the molecular gastronomy delights like the champagne caviar cube wowing the guests.
After the prayer, I stood up to explain the importance of a living eulogy extolling a person in a celebration before death.
Denise Noble Allen, at eight and a half months pregnant, emerged from the audience and ambled to the microphone. Her pregnant belly made me realize we were both in the midst of giving birth, me to my book and her to a baby boy in a week’s time.
She retraced my footsteps from the moment we met at just 14 when I told her about how my father had died with a masking smile, and the day, she received the call that I would return from living in Paris, France, at age 24 to be with my mother diagnosed with cancer and the insight to use my reporting skills to record my mother’s life stories.
She reflected on reading my book taking her back to the day when her father gave my father’s eulogy.
Gina Calderone, my childhood friend, followed. We all grew up in the same neighborhood. She brought all the threads together as she turned from her reminiscing to talk to me directly.
As we embrace, I watched Jeff Brody, my professor, my mentor and former advisor of the Daily Titan, the student newspaper at Cal State Fullerton, rise from the audience. He recalled how the “exquisite writing” caught his eye in a piece I wrote about raves.
He reflected on starting a literary journalism class and how he selected me for the independent study, pointing out then that I could eventually go to Columbia University, his alma mater.
I opened my book and read a passage that segued into a visual montage to the song “Somewhere Only We Know,” that brought my parents and the birth of my book Parting Ways to life on the silver screen. The final video clip played of me dancing in our family room and falling into my mother’s arms, on the day I asked her to have a celebration of her life before her death. That dance stops and becomes the still image on the cover of my book.