Book Review of Eddie Winston is Looking for Love

We are proud to introduce one of the newest members of our Memorial team, funeral apprentice Norma Figueroa! Norma brings with her not only over 17 years of experience in the medical field but also a warm spirit, a deep sense of compassion, and a genuine desire to serve families during some of life’s most tender moments. Norma is originally from Ponce, Puerto Rico and raised in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Today, she lives in Central Falls. Her interest in the human body started early—when she was in high school and tasked with dissecting a cat during an anatomy class. That moment sparked a lifelong curiosity about anatomy and eventually led her to nursing school. She went on to work as a certified nursing assistant, central supply director, scheduler, receptionist, and lead CNA trainer. Reflecting on her years in health care, Norma says she has always been fascinated by “the amazing things a human body can do.” Her medical background, combined with training and certification in thanatology, gerontology, and funeral service preparation, makes her uniquely prepared for the next chapter of her career in funeral service. Though her background isn’t in funeral homes, Norma has found the transition both meaningful and inspiring. “I’m learning a lot,” she says. “Everyone here is eager to help me learn the ropes.” She has been shadowing at services and learning the administrative ropes that entail with this industry. Norma also knows firsthand how important it is to be sensitive to different family dynamics, a skill she developed through years of patient care. As a bilingual speaker of English and Spanish, she is especially passionate about helping families feel heard, understood, and comforted. “Being Hispanic, we turn everything into a party,” she jokes, “but I know that is not the case for everyone.” She brings that cultural awareness and perspective into her work, meeting families where they are and supporting them in ways that feel authentic to their traditions. Of course, not everyone understands her career choice. “Some of my friends have been weirded out about me working with the dead,” she admits. “And I’m like, ‘Well, you’re gonna need me someday!’” Norma is a proud mom of two college-aged children and she enjoys traveling, going to concerts, spending time outdoors with her kids, and doting on the family cat, Midnight. She also likes to eat tasty food and dance! We are thrilled to have Norma on our team. With her dedication, warmth, and professional experience, she embodies the heart of our mission: to provide care, comfort, and guidance when families need it most.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for pediatric mental and behavioral health services has surged to crisis levels nationwide—and Rhode Island is no exception. For adolescents in Newport County, the situation has been especially dire, with no local acute care option for severe mental or behavioral health challenges. Until now, all of the state’s behavioral health beds have been concentrated in the Providence area—at Bradley, Hasbro Children’s, and Butler hospitals—forcing families in Newport County to seek urgent help off Aquidneck Island. Due to the lack of resources on the island, many families have relied on Newport Hospital’s emergency department. In 2022 alone, adolescents in crisis were boarded in the ED for 290 of 365 days, often waiting an average of 14 to 18 days for inpatient placement. These youth are among the most vulnerable, struggling with self-harm, aggression, or suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Recognizing this urgent gap, Newport Hospital is moving forward with plans for a dedicated Adolescent Behavioral Health Unit. The facility will be located on the hospital’s Sheffield 2nd floor and features six rooms and eight beds, including private and semi-private options. The space will undergo a complete interior renovation with substantial infrastructure replacements, advanced safety measures, and a secure outdoor garden for patient use. “It’s been almost a year in planning,” said Erin O’Dollard, Senior Philanthropy Officer at the Newport Hospital Foundation. “We’ve pushed the opening to January 2026 due to staffing challenges,” but, she said, they are well on their way to meeting the deadline in the New Year. O’Dollard explained that treatment for children is different than for adults, and the hospital has been seeing 30 or more kids a day at times, which makes this support so necessary. The unit will offer care ranging from single-day treatment to long-term hospitalization. Upon discharge, ongoing dialogue with families will ensure continued support for individuals and their loved ones. Newport Hospital is also working to secure funding for partial hospitalization programs in partnership with local schools and social workers. The need is undeniable. Nationally, suicide became the second-leading cause of death for youth ages 10 to 24 by 2018. Rhode Island mirrors the trend: one in five children ages 6 to 17 has a diagnosable mental health disorder, and the Rhode Island Youth Behavioral Health Survey found persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in high school students rose from 25% in 2009 to 37.8% in 2021. Calls to Kids’ Link RI , the state’s behavioral health crisis hotline, doubled between 2019 and 2021. The project is made possible thanks to community philanthropy. Dr. Jim Nolan and his wife, Peggy, provided the lead gift, inspired by a deep commitment to adolescent mental health. Funeral Director and Owner of Memorial Funeral Home Kurt Edenbach, also contributed to the construction and development of the ward. “It is important to have such a vital resource in our community, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Edenbach said. “We’re proud to be part of the creation of this resource.” With this new unit, Newport County’s youth will soon have local access to the specialized care they urgently need—offering hope, safety, and healing close to home.

Here at Memorial Funeral Home, we understand that the needs of our families have and will continue to evolve over time, and we try our best to evolve with those needs. One thing that has started to come up in conversations about pre-planning and other funeral arrangements is “What green options do you have?” As awareness of climate change and environmental impact grows, more people are seeking ways to align their values with how they live—and how they leave this world. Traditional burial and cremation methods can have significant ecological footprints, so natural burials and biodegradable urns are just some of the eco-conscious options that are reshaping how we approach death with care not only for loved ones but also for the Earth. We decided to break down some of the more eco-conscious options that we have at Memorial Funeral Home: Green burials In green burials, the body is buried in a way that allows it to decompose naturally without the use of embalming chemicals or other products that can harm the environment. Typically, the body is placed in a biodegradable casket or shroud and buried in a designated green burial cemetery. Currently, there are two cemeteries in Rhode Island that permit green burials. The Ellipse at Swan Point Cemetery and Prudence Memorial Park on Prudence Island also offer burial plots. To make the entire experience more eco-friendly, we offer electric vehicle transport services in a vehicle powered by solar panels on the roof of Memorial Funeral Home. These practices not only reduce pollution and carbon emissions but also help preserve natural habitats by supporting conservation and woodland preserves. Biodegradable urns Cremations can be more eco-friendly in that they are more space-efficient and do not necessarily require the use of formaldehyde to preserve the body, however, they do release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. To counteract some of the negative effects of cremations, one can choose biodegradable urns that grow into trees, allowing a loved one’s remains to become part of a living legacy. Families can also choose digital memorials instead of traditional gravestones, reducing the demand for quarried stone and physical markers. Green burials, for example, allow the body to return naturally to the earth without embalming or synthetic materials. The body is typically placed in a biodegradable shroud or casket, and interred in a natural setting without a concrete vault. These practices not only reduce pollution and carbon emissions, but they also help preserve natural habitats by supporting conservation cemeteries or woodland preserves. Aquamation, or water cremation (alkaline hydrolysis), is another eco-friendly alternative. It uses water and a gentle alkali solution to break down the body, resulting in significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to flame cremation. The bone fragments that remain are returned to loved ones in the same way that ashes created from flame cremation are returned. Other innovations include biodegradable urns that grow into trees, allowing a loved one’s remains to become part of a living legacy. How does aquamation work exactly? Aquamation, is currently legal in 28 states and will potentially be another option that we can provide in-state soon. The body is put into a stainless-steel chamber where an alkaline solution of water is mixed with potassium hydroxide. The chamber is then sealed, and both heat and pressure are applied. This breaks down the body’s tissues until only the bones remain, which are subsequently broken down and returned to loved ones just as they are in a traditional cremation. The whole process takes between 4 and 16 hours, depending on temperature and pressure. Aquamation uses approximately 90% less energy than conventional flame cremation—a process that emits the amount of carbon equivalent to a 500-mile car ride. Currently, water cremation is not offered in Rhode Island, but we work with another funeral home in Connecticut that offers the service. To make the process as green as possible, we offer EV transportation for this service as well. Choosing an eco-friendly funeral or memorial service is a meaningful way to reflect the values of a person who cared about sustainability in life. These choices help reduce the burden on our planet and offer a gentler, more natural process of returning to the Earth. As we continue to rethink how we care for the environment, it's only natural to consider how our final choices can leave a legacy of respect—for both people and the planet. Eco-friendly end-of-life services are more than a trend; they’re part of a movement toward a more thoughtful and responsible future.

I still have Netflix and my reason for keeping Netflix is that they do such a good job with regular releases of stand-up comedians. I have watched a lot of different comedy styles over the last 25 years or more. I remember stealing glimpses of George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Robin Williams as a child. As an adult, I pay to see live shows and watch them on various streaming services.  Recently, there was one stand-up special released entitled PostMortem by comedian Sarah Silverman. I have seen Silverman’s work before, normally she is quite dark and raunchy, but this special felt like a bit of a departure from her normal material and is basically a tribute to the lives of her parents. She mostly focused on her biological father and her stepmom (who both died in 2023 within 9 days of each other), with several mentions of her biological mother who died 8 years ago. Silverman is at heart a storyteller, so she does a good job of balancing the realities of loss and the humor that exists in life and death within her narrative. She does sneak in some of the regular Sarah Silverman material by touching a bit on sex, an odd Hitler joke, and a description of a skit she wrote for Saturday Night Live in the early 1990s which never made the air. This special is a beautiful way to memorialize their lives and she paints their personalities so vividly I feel like I knew them. I especially appreciate how this special is a way she continues to stay connected to them and how they influenced her life and those of her siblings and grandchildren. She also put a spotlight on the need for people to plan for the inevitability of death, oddly her parents made no plans for what happens “after” (they were 80 and 85 years old). I laughed quite a bit at the antics of her blunt family and her own idiosyncrasies. I cried at her bravery for bringing this universal human experience to the stage and sharing it. Every time an artist like Silverman breaks the mold and brings loss and grief to the forefront, I want to stand and cheer as it doesn’t shy away from this very real part of life. Many places in life like to pretend that death doesn’t happen and yet it does. Shows like this one pave the way for regular people to have these conversations in their own families. I feel grateful to Silverman for circulating her unique journey and perspective. Maybe you will, too.

If you happen to walk through Memorial Funeral Home’s doors, there is a high probability that Sam Silvia will be one of the faces that you see. Born and raised on Aquidneck Island, Sam has been a force within the community for decades. Before working at Memorial, Sam worked for the registration department for Newport Hospital. “I was 24 years old, and I was working at Grant's department store, and somebody came in and said, ‘there's a job opening in registration at Newport Hospital part time. So, I applied and got the job.” She said. “I worked part-time and through the years I stayed in that department and then became supervisor of the department and managed a group of 24 employees.” And she ended up working there for 48 years.  During that time, she formed a close relationship with the local funeral directors. The registration department was in charge of calling them when a patient passed away. “My staff would take them down to the morgue to ensure that they took the right body and open the door.” Not only was Sam no stranger to death and end-of-life procedures in her work, she also faced a lot of death in her personal life as well. The first death of a loved one was her brother-in-law, who helped her out a lot with her sick husband who had juvenile diabetes and became bedridden in the last years of his life. He was driving home one day on his motorcycle and got hit by a car and died when Sam was 24 years old. And then her husband died. “I was 32 when my first husband died, and he was 40. And then I got married again after that, a couple of years later and that husband died when I was 57 and he was 62.” She said. “And then I had a brother that died at 44 of a glioblastoma brain tumor and lost parents in between that.” Then she lost her younger brother and sister two and three years ago, respectively. “In the meantime--right after my first husband died--I got breast cancer.” She explained. Her cancer journey brought her through a mastectomy, and when the cancer returned, she underwent another mastectomy and chemotherapy. All while raising young children who had just lost their father. Memorial Funeral Home helped with the arrangements of all of Sam’s family members. Kurt Edenbach’s father and uncle, Charlie and Bob, both told her, “Hey, when you're done working here [Newport Hospital], come work with us.” Eventually, she did. “Well, I couldn't stand it when I retired. I really couldn't stand it.” She said. Sam retired from Newport Hospital in 2020 when she was 72 years old. She quickly realized that retirement wasn’t for her. “I ran into Kurt at King's Park, and he asked, ‘well what are you doing?’ I said, ‘well, I guess I'm ready.’ So, like 2 or 3 months after I retired, I went to work at the funeral home,” and she loves every minute of it. After going through so much death and trauma in her life, how does Sam stay so positive? If you know her, she really is like a ray of light in the room. “I think because I always see worse.” She said. “I see children that are sick or dying, and I think, ‘well, at least my kids are healthy. And at least my husbands lived to be 40 and 62. And I think that the storms that I've walked through have made me a very strong person.” Sam admitted that she does see things differently to other people, including her friends. “I just seem to know that stuff happens. What are you going to do? You can't wallow in this.” She said. Although, she does admit, her fortitude sometimes goes a little too far. “I do have a problem because I never want my kids to feel sorry for me or feel bad for me. So, I always keep a positive image around them.” She said. “I don't know if that's been the right thing to do.” She said one of the main reasons that she got through all these hard times was thanks to having very supportive girlfriends. “My mother would always tell me, "keep your girlfriends.They'll always be around you.” And, boy, she was right.” She said. Now, at 77 years old, Sam helps others to get through hard times. And I'm going to live to be 104.” She joked. “I love to comfort and greet people at the door [at Memorial].” She said. “I think that I love to be a part of something, like I call it ‘my Newport Hospital’, and now I call it ‘my funeral home.’” Sam said that she takes great pride in representing Memorial Funeral Home. “Well, I think it's just my nature to be that way anyway. I just feel a sense of great responsibility to do it right.” Sam not only greets people at the door, but she also helps with admin work, “and that helps me to keep my computer skills up.” She said. She also helps the funeral directors make sure the room for the service looks just right. But her favorite part is greeting people at the door. “Sometimes Kurt has to tell me that I'm holding up the line because I talk too much.” She joked. “The thing is, being born and raised here, I know so many people.” Sam also loves to dress up for the services. “It gives me a purpose to not sit here in sweatpants.” She said. “And I love shoes.” Sam is currently mad at former Funeral Director Ed Gurka, who recently retired from Memorial. “He was the one that was going to be able to make sure that all my shoes went in my coffin with me.” She joked. And what makes for a good shoe according to Sam, you might ask? “Well, most of the time they have to pop.” She said. “So, in other words, say, if I'm wearing all black, I might wear red shoes,” which go perfectly with her red-framed glasses. “I have the problem now, at this stage of my life, I can't wear the most beautiful shoes in the world because I'm standing too long.” She said. “So now they have to be more comfortable than beautiful.” Most importantly, though, Sam loves to interact with the families that come to Memorial. Sam says that once the family has had time with their loved one at the funeral home she will go in and let them know when people start arriving, “and they appreciate that.” She said. Considering her experience with death over the years, she also knows what not to say to people who have suffered the loss of a loved one. “We certainly know that we should not be saying, ‘I know how you feel.’ Although I could say that, but I wouldn't.” She said. A simple, “I'm so sorry for your loss,” is perfectly acceptable, according to Sam. She also appreciates when people tell stories about the person that is gone, “and that's the reason for these ceremonies-- some kind of closure is so important.” She said. “That's why I think it's a very important process to go through.”

Dawn Emsellem-Wichowski heard about the wind phone in Japan and decided that her property on Sandy Point Ave in Portsmouth would be a perfect spot for one here on Aquidneck Island. “We live right on the Aquidneck Land Trust and people are walking by all the time.” She said, “It's sort of like on the spine of the island. It's on the crest along East Main Road and so it's windy all the time. I thought a wind phone is perfect here.” The original wind phone was created in Japan by Itaru Sasaki after losing his cousin to cancer. He purchased an old-fashioned phone booth and set it up in his garden. According to the My Wind Phone website , Sasaki found comfort, connection and healing amid his grief when using the phone to speak with his cousin. Sasaki gave his phone booth a name, Kaze No Denwa, which can be translated into English as The Telephone of the Wind. A year later on March 11th, 2011, the most powerful earthquake in recorded history hit Japan, which caused a series of tsunamis. Nearly 20,000 people lost their lives. The city of Ōtsuchi was one of the worst hit places by the tsunami, which is close to Sasaki’s residence and his wind phone became a way for many to reflect on their grief and connect with lost loved ones. “And it was profound, its impact. It extended beyond him being able to talk to his cousin after the tsunami, people started coming to talk to their loved ones that they had lost.” Emsellen-Wichowski said. “I kind of wanted to make an American version of this.” According Emsellen-Wichowski, the idea “fermented” in her head for a couple of years and then she found her phone booth. “I kept an eye out for a phone booth on Facebook Marketplace for like a year or two and found one in Providence.” She said, “This guy had it in his garage, and it was his cousin’s, and his cousin had gotten it from a bank that was downtown, and it was on his porch for like ten years.” The phone booth is what people older than 30 might remember from yesteryear that was used to make calls in the pre-cellphone era. Unlike traditional phone booths, the phone inside this booth is bright red and the area surrounding the booth is filled with flowers and other plants to make it a more private experience. “I had a very particular vision of the rotary dial. I wanted like a candy apple, red rotary dial phone.” Emsellen-Wichowski said. The idea kept percolating in her head and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “And I just was hearing all these stories of people who had lost loved ones and weren't able to do the usual mourning that one does where everybody gets together in person and is present and telling stories about the person.” She said. “So that kind of motivated me to get out there. And my husband and I put down a concrete pad and then checked with the town to make sure it was OK and then put the phone there.” Then NBC 10 News came and interviewed Emsellen-Wichowski in 2021 after a family friend reposted something that she had put up about the phone booth. “Since then, people have just sort of stopped by.” She said, “Some people come back on an anniversary. “I have a notebook that I keep there, and I notice sometimes people will say, ‘I came back again this year to talk to dad’ or whatever.” Emsellen-Wichowski said that people will oftentimes leave stones or knickknacks around the phone in honor of their person. “A project I really want to do is get a weatherproof curio cabinet so that people can put things in there,” she said, since the weather does degrade the things that people leave over time.  In the past year, the North Dartmouth High School pottery class came by and left some decorated pieces of pottery and a new cup for the pens that are there for the people to write in the log. “People come by, and you can go for a walk afterwards because it's really beautiful at all times of year.” Emsellen-Wichowski said. She said that the phone booth needs some updates, like the seat inside needs to be redone and the solar fairy lights inside the lamp need to be replaced. She is also going to add a magnetic poetry board and a kinetic sculpture to make the site more kid-friendly. “I have a blackberry patch and I'm going to put a little sign there that says you can pick them,” she said. She also added a porch swing on one side. “So, I've been sort of adding to it to make it so that there are lots of options if people come by and they want to sit in the swing after they visit the phone and stare at the cows.” Emsellen-Wichowski also added that the booth is very private. She never shares anything personal that is written in the log and whenever she notices people heading to the booth, she makes sure to give them their privacy. She understands the importance of giving people the time to grieve in their own way. “There's just so many different ways that people experience grief. As many different ways as people love or have a family.” She said, “There's a lot of diversity and there's also a lot of shared experiences. It's quite moving.” You can find the location of the wind phone on the booth’s Instagram account which is @goosefieldswindphone, or by clicking here .

Mother's Day without a mother can be difficult, even if it wasn't a big holiday before.

On April 15th political scientist and author, Dr. Robert D. Putnam gave a lecture at Salve Regina University called What is the State of American Democracy Today?, which was cosponsored by RENewport , a community collaborative based in Newport. Dr. Putnam is known for his work on how civic engagement in society is a bellwether for the state of democracy. One of his best-known works is Bowling Alone in America: The Collapse and Revival of American Community , which addresses the cultural consequences of dramatically declining rates of participation in America’s civic associations, from religious communities to recreational clubs. The talk was kicked off by an introduction from former U.S. Representative for Rhode Island, David Cicilline who is now the president and chief executive officer of the Rhode Island Foundation. The day prior to the talk, a screening of a documentary about Dr. Putnam’s work called Join or Die was screened at the Jane Pickens Theater. The political scientist began the talk by discussing the current state of our political system and democracy. “I’ve tried very hard in my work to be bipartisan,” he said, mentioning that he has worked with “all three Bush’s” during his career as a political scientist. However, what he did assert is that America today has reached historic levels of political polarization, economic inequality, social isolation and cultural self-centeredness, which is reflected in our current political situation. He explained that the wealth gap that exists now is bigger than it was even in the Gilded Age. The only time similar to what we are going through now was at the turn of the 20th century. What happened after this period was the establishment of social security, the Boys Scouts of America and other civic safety nets. Dr. Putnam explained that the ‘60s were considered a time when Americans were most equal in economic terms, although he was quick to point out the lack of equality for women and people of color. Now, “we are a class-divided society,” he said, not just in economic terms, but in recognition. “We don’t think the person pumping gas is the same as us.” He said. Dr. Putnam suggested that the next time the audience members go to a supermarket checkout or have their gas pumped for them, that they ask themselves, “do I think of that person as an equal?” According to Dr. Putnam, we as a society were able to fix similar problems before, so we should be able to fix the problems we face now. What we need is to engage our youth more to lead these movements, much like what Greta Thunberg has done with climate change, as well as ensure that it is grassroots led. It needs to be bottom-up, not top down. “We should be getting to work locally,” he said. The political scientist also talked about social media’s role in this lack of “social capital” as he calls civic engagement. Studies have shown that social media platforms like X and Facebook are designed to favor outrage and anger over other types of messaging, as well as foster in people feeling of increased isolation and loneliness. Face-to-fact engagement just cannot be replaced by a virtual reality. According to Dr. Putnam, what we need is a renewed sense of moral obligation to fix our society. “It won’t get fixed this time unless you and your children and students take up this moral calling,” he said as he addressed the full auditorium. “I think for sure there is the desire to fix the problem,” he continued. Dr. Putnam concluded the talk saying that he was hopeful for the future and paraphrased the late English Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks that optimism is a passive virtue, but hope is an active one. Hopefully we can all be more hopeful!

Shrinking is a series that came out this year on Apple TV+ and those of us that have watched it at Memorial Funeral home loved it! The series is irreverent in many ways and if you are not a fan of shall we say, mature (or perhaps immature) humor, then it might not be the … Shrinking: a show about grief and laughter Read More » The post Shrinking: a show about grief and laughter appeared first on Newport RI | Memorial Funeral Home.