Confession: I can’t remember faces. Or names. This is a woeful handicap for a reporter; on many occasions I’ve had to ask people who look half-familiar, “Have I ever interviewed you?”
But the people I’ve met writing the Sunday Story series have made an indelible impression on me. This week, I decided to check in with a few of them.
Death doula Shelby Kirillin (at left) chats with client Kim McGaughey. (Photo by Julianne Tripp)
I’ve never met anyone who is as enthusiastic about death — good death, that is — as Shelby Kirillin (Opening the Window, 2016). Kirillin is a death doula. She helps dying people make their last days meaningful, fearless, even joyful. “You have written so many amazing chapters,” she tells her clients. “Write your last chapter. Put an exclamation point at the end! Make it end in a crescendo.”
Kirillin has become a vocal advocate — locally and nationally — for approaching death as a natural part of life, not merely a medical experience to be feared and staved off at any cost.
People are listening to her message. Local religious leaders have asked her to teach end-of-life spiritual care. She’s co-organizing “The Art of Dying” conference for industry professionals at Bon Secours in May. Kirillin has hired a second death doula at her company, A Peaceful Passing. And she trains people for the International End of Life Doula Association, not only in the caregiving aspects of the job, but also the financial. Kirillin is perfectly comfortable with death, but “talking about a business model and EIN numbers makes me break out in a sweat,” she admits with a laugh.
I wondered if Kirillin might have gotten burned out from her work with the dying. Performing this service does require vigilant self-care, she says, but the rewards are immense. She knows she's doing important work every time a family member tells her, “That was the way they wanted it. Thank you so much.”
Mallory McCune with the stone placed by her grandfather Karl Williams on his old farm; it reads: “Varina — since 1611 — Birthplace of True Conservatism.” (Photo by Jay Paul)
In Central Virginia, development often feels inexorable; farm fields inevitably turn into suburban sprawl. But Mallory McCune (Saving Our “Tuscany,” 2017) showed me that it doesn’t have to be that way.
Her family’s connections to Varina go back more than two centuries; land on Pearces Creek has been in the family since the mid-1700s. McCune loves Varina so much that, at a young age, she became a vocal force for its preservation through her work on the Route 5 Corridor Coalition. And in 2018, she says, “We had a really good year.”
Henrico County completed a comprehensive Route 5 study that establishes design guidelines and a clear vision for the historic corridor. While much residential development has already been planned, many locals hope to protect the area’s unique beauty and rural character. One promising avenue, McCune explains to me, is permitting creative land uses and agritourism — “for example, changing some of the code language so you can have a farm that’s also a brewery.”
McCune is now in her second year at the University of Richmond School of Law and “absolutely loving it.” Last summer, she worked for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and interned with the Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney; this year, she’ll be working on land use and transportation for the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Scott Trynham gets a hug after Sandra Dee “Vegas” Townsend calls a customer “darling” and he asks if he’s a darling, too. “Of course you are, darling!” she says. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Sandra Dee “Vegas” Townsend (The Patron Saint of Pet Owners, 2017) gave me a piece of advice I still use to this day. If you ever tell someone you’ll pray for them, she said, do it right that instant. Don’t wait. You’ll forget.
Townsend marked her 20-year anniversary with PetSmart last year. You’ll find her at the Libbie Place location on weekdays. Next time you’re there, look for her at the register. If you’re lucky, she’ll call you “darling” in her wonderful, throaty voice. She always sounds like she means it.
Townsend’s husband, Melvin, continues to battle multiple myeloma, a bone cancer that affects plasma cells. “They didn’t expect him to live this long,” she says. The couple is grateful for the support they received via their GoFundMe campaign, she says, which helped sustain them while Melvin wasn’t working.
He still needs a transplant, Townsend says, and they continue to experience financial struggles. The good news is that Melvin is strong enough to be out of the house and working at the dollar store. “He’s still here,” she says. “God’s still got him.”
Richard Avanzini, with wife Norma and in 2018 (Photo by Melissa Scott Sinclair)
Richard Avanzini (The Collector, 2018) is 96 now, and recovering from a recent fall. (He instructed me to mention his wonderful nurses, Joanne and Vera.)
Avanzini likes to fill stacks of little spiral-bound notebooks with things he looks up online: artists, actresses, shipwrecks, lighthouses. But when I visited him last, he had no list in progress. “I’m really kind of finished with them. Got to be too tedious for me,” he says. He touched his temple. “My head’s starting to go,” he says regretfully.
Fortunately, his memories remain sharp. He lights up when he talks about his wife, Norma, and the dazzling nights they had in the golden age of New York nightclubs.
They had been only acquaintances when he left home in December 1942 to serve in the U.S. Navy. Then, they struck up a pen-pal relationship while he was overseas. When his train arrived in New York in May 1945, she was waiting for him.
“I didn’t know her,” he says. “We never went out together. We never really talked.” But seeing her on the platform, he began to fall in love. Their romance kindled in earnest one day after that, when he was following her up the stairs and he noticed her legs — “very nice-looking legs,” he says.
Norma’s father owned the elite Sands Point Bath and Racquet Club on Long Island and was well-known in the New York restaurant scene. Family friend Dr. Benjamin A. Gilbert was the on-call doctor for Madison Square Garden and all the Broadway playhouses, and his connections got Richard and Norma into the swankiest clubs in the city: the Latin Quarter, the Copacabana, the Stork Club, Jack and Charlie’s 21, Leon and Eddie’s. One night, at Shepheard’s in the Drake Hotel, Avanzini saw Rita Hayworth and Prince Aly Khan. “We were rubbing elbows with them as we were dancing,” he says.
On his computer, when I visit, an album of tangos by Mantovani and His Orchestra is playing.
“Were you a good dancer?” I ask.
“No. But Norma was. Norma loved to dance.” Dance and travel were their passions. They had two sons, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. They had been married 67 years when he lost her.
I ask him this: When he looks back on his life, is there anything he wishes he could have changed?
“Not my wife,” he says. “That’s for sure.”
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