All I’ve been doing is texting and taking calls and making calls and then sleeping. Just passing out from sheer mental and emotional exhaustion. Going through motions, not really in my body. And then sleeping. It’s 5:32. T. texted me. I had a strange dream that I can feel but not quite remember in detail but it was a far out one. It was in Brooklyn. There was music and a lot of Black people, dancing. And floating.

It’s only Monday. One day since I called your mom and she told me you were gone, suffered cardiac arrest. My body aches. I can’t put my feelings into words. I have not engaged with social media because I can’t. Every time I think I’ve called everyone I know you would have wanted me to, everyone that you connected me to while you were here on this plain, there’s one more. My heart aches. My chest is tight. There is a hole in me.

My eyes are wet.

I get up to write this. It’s all I know how to do right now.

I saw you on Friday at a beautiful event where you were both the host and the guest of honor. So many beautiful Black people, friends and educators gathered on a beautiful Friday evening to hear you speak. You moved around the room, networking, laughing, connecting, doing what no one else can do the way you do, a force of love sweeping through, fierce and full of integrity.

I saw you on Saturday at Mamajuanas, which is right by my apt. You texted me that afternoon to say you were having lunch with a colleague. I was on my way downtown with my husband but I came out and popped down to see you and we spoke briefly about a great visit you had to a school in the Bronx that morning. I had watched a video you made about it on IG and I remember thinking, wow she don’t stop. She don’t stop ever. I remember looking at your face and just feeling that energy of yours that seemed to come right through across the screen and into me as you talked about how Bronx schools always seem to be neglected. I remember what a huge response people had to the content we put up from the Friday event. Someone who taught in the Bronx said they needed this to happen there. You were like bet, let’s make it happen.

You made things happen. You made things happen all the time.

And I still don’t understand how this happened. I keep wanting you to call me, text me, send me something from wherever you are to explain. Explain yourself. I think I even know what you might say. That you didn’t plan for this. That you didn’t mean to leave in this way, that you wish you could be here to help us cope.

No one understands. No one can believe you are gone. A part of me feels you, ever present. A part of me waits for you to tell me, what to do next, how I should do it, what are we working on next? What do you need me to create, to edit, to put together, to send. I cannot conceive that you will not ever give me something to do again. I can’t.

It’s 5:50pm. I’m in bed with my husband as I write this. He has been the perfect supporting counterbalance to my grief. I don’t know what I would do without him and I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. But I don’t intend to ever be without you. In many ways, you are more alive than ever, and yet still, I cannot bare the thought, I will never hear your voice, your laughter, your Ago, Ame, or see your face, dip into hot spa pools with you, talk waist beads, coconut oil, shea butter and ancestors and Black liberation with you again. I cannot believe it.

It’s 5:54.

I didn’t go to work today and I don’t know how I’m going to be able to go in tomorrow. I’m afraid for emotions that I don’t have control over. I need to see the rest of the CREAD team soon. I need to see so many people who knew and loved you as I did. I need to be around people who understood how dedicated and passionate and unyieldingly loving you were. I need that and I need rest.

And I need you. I don’t think I ever expressed to you how much.