Nothing has ever shook me awakelike listening to James Baldwin speak.That clipped tone,chilly demeanor,smarter than I’ll ever be,telling me thingsno one ever taught,or if they did,couched in so many layersof codes and euphemismsand school-board-approved,watered-down bullshitthat the truth was hidden from me. More truth than we know what to do with, I see. I don’t know how many timeswe have to watch a white man put his kneeon a black bodyto understand what is happening,has happened,for the lies we’ve been told to come unraveled,in order to unleashthe anger in your own… Read more Listening to James Baldwin speak →
To remember collectively is to gatherwith those who knewwhat it meant to be in that presence,and that history, of their own, of a nation.A cry of many voices cancut through a morning skyright up to the birds flying overthe crowing below.And they cry alongsideand the chorus is catharsis,this is what loss should sound like,a shaking of a small plot of earth. But not this time. We were not divined to decide,but we did, we sent a veteranto a premature graveafter we swore we would protect him.In his final moments,a kind… Read more Grandpa →
With his last few good breaths,still hanging on, unattachedto the mask, awake,the thoughts must have raged.There was no good reason.They had been so carefulfor their fragile son.But when the sorrow quieted,when death came whispering,he felt a rush,it came tumbling from his hands:how much he loved his wife,their two babies,how lucky he had beento know them,reminded her to live,if she couldto fall in love again. And that was the end. After her husband died from coronavirus, she found an emotional goodbye note on his phone — April 25, 2020 Obituary: Jonathan… Read more The goodbye note →
Sister Wheeler fed anyone who had a shaky hand from her largess of cheese sandwiches and sweet yams as she held up their bones any way she knew how slipped… Read more Feed my sheep →
A body makes its own rules, there is nothing to blame, simply the tornadoes in our blood rolling dice and out we come, imperfect and fragile, we stumble through time growing taller and weaker at once. Some boys have to fight harder with less armor than grown men. Regularly visiting the valley of death between games of Fortnite and silly jokes with friends. Kindness isn’t required when life has been this hard, but he was love, strength, with a light brighter than his body could contain. Ernesto Guzman, age 12,… Read more Fighting his whole life →
Bury me in the sand, or if you can’t, send me off with a reminder of where I longed to be. I offered my life, just one volunteer of many, to the churning of the unknown, the night sea that rages. I was a simple canoe riding the stormy waves, unprepared. Someone could have prepared me. But this is it. I was needed and so I went. Cindy Locklear, COVID-19 victim, ‘really loved being a nurse’ — May 16, 2020 Obituary: Cindy L. Locklear, 62, of Northborough As COVID-19 descended… Read more The shells of Sanibel →
Bernie delivered babies, Arthur delivered the mail. No matter how ordinary the day, any friend was sure to eat well. Fifty-eight years of togetherness, of laughter, of pain, of love. They never consider stopping, golfing and praising the Lord above. Arthur went first from the illness, shining a path through the door, they departed this earthly swamp together, to be separated no more. For Bernadine and Arthur Moran, who died within a week of each other of Covid-19. Read their obituary. ‘They are together:’ New Orleans husband, wife die days… Read more Separated no more →
We’re breaking in to report that the “Double Rainbow guy” died of the virus we’re all hiding from. He’d written on social media that he was ready to die if it was his time, ready to recycle his being, to return in another body. Reinvention personified, a fight unlike other fights. The doctors took him off life support when the one body stopped, but what could kill such a spirit? The record may state 0 victories, 1 loss, but you can’t look at a rainbow anymore and not think of… Read more “What does it all mean?” →
