I lost a member of my Caribbean Diaspora family today. I lost a friend, a fellow daily-life activist, someone who enriched and informed my life, someone who said I helped enrich and inform theirs. It's been about 12 hours or so since I heard the news. It took a couple hours for me to believe the news was real, and for it all to sink in. And now every time I see another post mourning her passing it hurts all over again and then I feel guilty about not making some official statement, something eloquent or at least coherent - but I'm not sure what to say.
I am glad, however, that since it was her birthday last week, I got the chance to tell her how glad I was she was born, and how much it meant to have her in my life. Too often we don't get the chance to remind people of how much they mean to us, how their presence makes breathing easier, stupidity less stinging and hatred and oppression to feel less overwhelming.
I will miss her jokes, her wisdom, her epic sarcasm. I will miss sharing pictures of the Caribbean and discussions of the representations of our people in 'global/us centric' media. I will miss her art spams - showing me PoC in wonderous fantasy environments as well as simply real life beautiful individuals.
I will miss her.
Anyone interested in memorial donations, please consider the list of charities she wrote up in January for Haiti.
