A Graceful Death is a powerful new exhibition by Antonia Rolls. It celebrates and describes the last weeks and day of life of my partner Steve Shaw, who died of liver cancer in 2007. The Friends House, Chichester, West Sussex 7 - 13 December 2009. www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com
The exhibition is a raw and loving attempt to understand the process of the end of life and the beginning of death. The awe inspiring miracle of death and life existing together in the ravaged body of the man I loved as he folded away and faded out of this life.
St Barnabas House was the wonderful hospice that took my thin and confused Steve out of his wheelchair the day he arrived and said with love to me Let us take him now. They laid him on his bed before taking his coat off because they could see he was too exhausted and needed to rest. Someone took me to a room and held my hand while I cried and cried. Steve was safe in St Barabas, they danced him out of this life with care intelligence love and compassion.
I want to give back to St Barnabas something to enable their work to continue. Please donate and help another Steve and Antonia to find the help and support and love they needed at the end of a life. Thank you. Please come to the exhibition too.