The funeral service took place at 2 pm PST on Saturday, October 5, 2024
Kenneth Hanson
June 13, 1951 - September 25, 2024
Dear friends,
Kenneth Hanson, a beloved member of the Apollo Center of the Fellowship of Friends, completed his task on September 25, 2024, at 8:22 a.m., following a long illness with cancer.
Kenneth was born on June 13, 1951, and joined the Fellowship on September 1, 1979. He was 73 years old on his last birthday. Kenneth supported the school in many Fellowship centers, including Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Moscow, Stockholm, and Washington, D.C. At Apollo, he served in a variety of roles during his decades here, including as a Fellowship board member. His quiet nature included a firm presence, which his friends and colleagues will miss.
He wrote a final note to Robert recently, saying:
“Your love and support over the years have created a new being in me. It will carry forth into my next lives, wonderful… You will always be with me. Thank you, with love, Kenneth”
On behalf of all who knew you, we give thanks.
The Elysian Society
Funeral Service Text: Kenneth Hanson 2024-10
I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.
Benjamin Franklin
Oh gentle gentle
Blue eyed one
Thank you for your sweet friendship dear Kenneth
Sweetness personified ♡
A butterfly lights beside us like a sunbeam
and for a brief moment it’s glory and beauty belongs to our world.
But then it flies again…..
And though we wish it could have stayed….
We feel lucky to have seen it.
Author Unknown
“Hey Kenneth”
“Hi Charles”
“How’s it going?” He looked at me with a wry expression that said more than words.
“I’ll make you an omelette, the usual.”
“Sure” he replied, “But I don’t have much appetite and it needs to be very soft. I don’t swallow very well.” “Okay” I replied and went to the kitchen to lay out my cooking utensils, like a surgeon preparing for an operation.
“Hi Charles” she said. “Thanks for coming over. Before you make eggs, can you make coffee? I need coffee and I haven’t had any this morning.”
‘Me neither, I’m gasping” I said with a smile, even though I’d already had a cup at home.
Coffee and eggs prepared, I took it all into the living room. Ken’s cup was a large earthenware mug, but all he wanted was a taste, so there wasn’t much more than a splash at the bottom of his mug.
He moved his legs from off the couch where he’d had them resting, and sat in his chair like a little boy waiting for mom or dad to bring breakfast. I put his one-egg omelette on his tray along with a fork and napkin.
He poked at it, took a couple very small bites, put his fork down and just looked at it. He looked at me, again with an expression that seemed to say ‘No use, it’s not happening”.
As we sat there, just being with each other, the memory of a trip to the pharmacy with him, and the epic burger and fries lunch we treated ourselves to wafted across my memory. He said to me that he had refused further treatments and was no longer receiving them. “ When I refused the radiation and chemo and left the hospital, I walked away from the king of clubs.”
“Are you more present?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Not because he couldn’t or didn’t want to. It was as if the question was irrelevant.
He looked at me. What was looking at me was undiluted presence gazing at me through his eyes. In that moment I was the lover beholding the Beloved, his sweet soul entwined with mine.
Goodbye Ken. Thank you for the life you lived and allowing me to be a part of the beautiful fairy tale of your death.
AT the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks—from the keep of the well-closed
doors,
Let me be wafted.
Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper,
Set open the doors, O Soul!
Tenderly! be not impatient!
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!
Strong is your hold, O love.)
~ Walt Whitman