Place: LA’s Fringe Festival, June 2024
Heather Fink is a comedienne/filmmaker/storyteller who bravely shares her thoughts and feelings about long-term illness, caregiving, death, loss (income, career, family), and love in a live performance.
The title Quicksand telegraphs Heather’s theme, most of all its weight. She offers an authentic, energetic, engaging, and quirky memoir with relatable universal situations.
The well-paced performance (with backdrop slide show of photos, a stuffed dummy father, and surprise pop-up) entertains and reels us in as we relate to the family crisis – her father’s stroke – the toll on her father unable to speak but four words, the exhaustion of her self-sacrificing Dutch mother, and loss for Heather’s efforts to advance her career. Heather shares, “we lived with a constant sea of emergencies.” Thirteen years of emergencies.
Meet Heather introducing her show on TikTok at:
The material is fresh and raw. Heather’s father Stephen passed away exactly a year ago around the time she celebrated another birthday.
Heather’s journey is one of endurance and faith.
A fine audience experience demonstrating the value of everyday love and remembrance.
Quicksand messages:
Family illness and ultimately death affect the life trajectory of all involved.
Learn how to recognize a stroke!! (outlined on the show’s program)
There are 53 million unpaid caregivers in the U.S., they represent the backbone of long-term care. Most families, such as Heather’s, cannot afford to hire in-home caregivers.
Heather’s Angst and Outcome:
“I’m 43 and I have nothing to show for it” she cries. As we learn, though she may not yet see, she has everything to show for it – being present for both parents with love and support, plus the experience of a dark night of the soul that ultimately led to her current mission – meaningful discussions about caregiving, illness, and death.
Heather is now an advocate for stroke awareness, advance care planning, and talking about death, especially at Death Cafes.
Notes:
The Hollywood Fringe Festival, a community arts event, is held over three weekends every June at various small theaters in LA. It was founded in 2010 with 130 shows. The term originated with the first Edinburgh Fringe Festival which featured unique, non-traditional performances in 1947.
Death Café. Bernard Crettaz, a Swiss sociologist, created the first Café Mortels. His concept of meeting over tea and cake revolutionized how we speak about death and dying. Jon Underwood, who founded Death Café in the UK, made a trip to meet his inspiration Bernard Crettaz. Underwood attended the last Café Mortels in Lausanne, October 31, 2014. Jon died suddenly in 2017 at the age of 43. His mother and sister, plus two women in the U.S., keep the project going. There are more than 18,000 Death Cafes in 90 countries around the world.
There is a thoughtful Death Café in Los Angeles hosted by Elizabeth Gill Lui, a photographer/artist/author and death doula, at LA’s Philosophical Research Society.
A June 12, 2024 article in the Los Angeles Times features Elizabeth’s Death Café. The photo includes the author of this post (wearing a mask) and to her right and the reader’s left, charming Heather Fink who created the solo piece Quicksand. Link to article is in the Resources section below.
© Wendy Jane Carrel, 2024
Wendy Jane Carrel, MA, is a Spanish-speaking senior care advocate from California. She has travelled Mexico for several years researching health systems, senior care, and end-of-life care to connect Americans, Canadians, and Europeans with healing options for loved ones. She is a compassionate companion and palliative care liaison, legacy writer, co-founder of Café Mortality Ajijic/now Death Café Ajijic and founding member/speaker of the Beautiful Dying Expo (USA). She is a trauma-informed, gentle End-of-Life Doula (National End-of-Life Doula Alliance proficient), and a speaker and published author on subjects related to senior well-being. Wendy’s web site is https://www.WellnessShepherd.com
Resources:
https://www.caregiver.org/resource/caregiver-statistics-demographics/ .
https://deathcafe.com Death Café
https://www.prs.org/events.html Philosophical Research Society, LA
https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2024-06-12/death-cafes-los-angeles-grieving-discussion-group# Sorry, there is a paywall
Wellness Shepherd 