Rebe was 19 when her mother died. She didn’t allow herself to feel her grief, following well-meaning advice to put her grief aside. Thirty years later, Rebe went on a quest to know her mother, to grieve her. She traveled to Cuba and learned to grieve from a culture that holds their dead close. She saw it was possible to communicate with the other side, and it changed her relationship to her mother and her grief. 

Rebe Huntman is a memoirist, essayist, dancer, teacher, and poet who writes at the intersections of feminism, world religion and spirituality. For over a decade she directed Chicago’s award-winning Danza Viva Center for World Dance, Art & Music and its dance company, One World Dance Theater. Huntman collaborates with native artists in Cuba and South America, has been featured in Latina Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune, and has appeared on Fox and ABC. A Macondo fellow and recipient of an Ohio Individual Excellence award, Huntman received support for her debut memoir, My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic & Miracle (Monkfish Book Publishing Company, 2025), from The Ohio State University, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Ragdale Foundation, PLAYA Residency, Hambidge Center, and Brush Creek Foundation. She lives in Delaware, Ohio and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

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Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

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