i’ve cried so much these past few weeks, but right now i am crying in the ways i did when i was lying in the hospital bed after i got hit by a truck, in immense pain. My heart is in so much pain right now, and it is difficult to breathe.

Today (24 September) would have been the day cicely turned 45 years old; however, it was the day of her memorial, after a long fight with metastatic breast cancer. i have seen her every day beside me since the news of her passing. Her not being here physically never felt real, until this day. i dreaded the appearance of this day, because i never wanted her to leave my side. And though i’ve cried almost every day; even though i’ve had chest pains and unstable sleep and unshakable dread this whole time- today specifically feels as if i’ve been hit by a truck all over again.

Despite her currently being in the presence of the ancestors- or perhaps because of it- cicely has become an even greater teacher to me than she was throughout her life on earth.

September 3, 2024 at 11:40 am (and 59 seconds) is when i received the voice message.

“I am at home in hospice; what that means is that I won’t be getting any more medical interventions. I’m… I’m just getting comfortable, and they’re making me comfortable before I die.”

Immediately, in tears, i sent my own message. She responded that she did not want to hide anything from me, but it all happened so fast, as she had a fall and ended up in the hospital.

Within a matter of days, she was gone.

Cicely and i met 16 or so years ago, in Portland, Oregon; a place visually known to many for its beauty, but for so many others (including ourselves), it was well-versed in the art of passive aggressiveness and covert racism. She and i met- two African punk kids, angry about the inhumanity of capitalism. We aimed to do something about it. We immediately bonded over our love for bands like Crass (a band logo she had tattooed on her), and as much as we loved the band, understood they were not immune from critique. Her method of ‘loving critique’ is something she lived by, as long as i knew her.

We never let a moment pass where “I love you” was not shared with one another. We spoke almost every single day, whether it was by phone or voice message. When the longer conversations became a little less frequent (because of the effects of the chemotherapy) we made every moment count.

In a modern society where people do most of their communications through social media or texting, cicely countered that in her desire for deeper connections. You could spend hours on the phone with her. Superficial or brief conversations were antithetical to her communication style. She needed to get to the root of things. She was surgical in her approach to get everything out of you- not out of maliciousness, but because she knew there was more to a person than what we were giving to the world, and ourselves. Whatever answer you had to her questions, she tended to follow it up with a ‘Why?’ or ‘Explain further, what you mean.” It was not always comfortable, but it was necessary.

Prior to becoming an amputee i moved through the world in a way that was less restricted. i experienced less ideation and periods of depression because of it. After the accident it hit me (no pun intended) that most people around me did not move in the same ways. The world instantly changed. i became incredibly isolated, as i learned that people generally did not enjoy (or have time for) hours-long conversation about dissecting politics, films, and other forms of art. The depression and ideation returned in an even fuller form.

Throughout this, cicely was a brilliant light in the midst of an ever-present dimness. Despite her own massive variations in ill health, she was one of the only ones to take time to have those long conversations with me. While she explicitly never wanted me to be sad for her process of declination (and of course i never listened), she always felt just as sad that she could never be as present for me as she’d wanted to be in these times.

In a place where people are so consumed by their day and ‘don’t have time’ (for whatever it is they are saying they don’t have time for), no matter how sick she was, when she was physically able to she could find the time to send messages of joy to those she loved. She saw the prioritizing of her friends’ mental and physical health, just as much as she prioritized her own.

As i sat throughout her celebration of life i thought about our many conversations about relationships. While a majority of people in our surroundings consider the term ‘relationship’ to be primarily romantic; how we both defined it extended beyond that. You can have a relationship with a romantic partner, but you could also have one with the bus driver you see every day. We both also understood that the key to maintaining a sustainable organization is the building of relationships.

While we both agreed on this premise, how we approached relationships were different. While both she and i prioritized friendships over romantic relationships, my notion of friendships were that i held very few close to me. i’d always consider cicely to be one of my closest friends- i stopped regularly using the term ‘best friend’ years ago, because it seemed a bit too hierarchical for my tastes. For me, a close friend is someone who consistently has been with me in some of my lowest moments; we have struggled together, yelled together and laughed together. i can tell this person my most vulnerable and intimate of experiences.

At the celebration of life/memorial, i discovered she’s had many whom she’s had this sort of relationship with. I internally laughed a bit, because everything she’d told me about what relationships meant to her made so much sense, seeing it in action, even after her passing. She was poly-platonic and anti-hierarchical in the purest sense.

We both also shared a commonality in that we both bought houses, and were living with our life partners. She was one of the few people i confided in as i was going through the process of purchasing a house. i had been opposed to purchasing a house for as long as i can remember, but she was my cheerleader the whole time, giving me tips and letting me know she would be of assistance wherever she’s needed.

i remember when she first told me told me that she was in the process of closing, then it finally happened.

Five months later, she’s gone.

Another thing we had in common was that as serious as we were about organizing and fighting systems of oppression, we felt just as strongly about laughter and music. We both love(d) singing and dancing, and bad jokes. We both were punk kids, but we listened to anything that sounded good to us.

One of the moments i will always cherish is her recording of ‘Skyscraper’ by Bad Religion, one of my favorite bands of all time (and as she said, “…one of my first punk bands I loved.”). Despite them being one of my favorite bands, it’s been incredibly difficult to listen to them lately, as whenever i do i think of cicely and i break down.

She was music. She was beauty.

She saw the beauty in herself, in a society that would have never deemed her beautiful- as an African woman, as a woman whose body was ravaged with cancer, and as a women who was far from thin. She did not care what society thought, and neither did i: She was one of the most stunningly beautiful people you’d ever meet. Just as she was assured in her femininity (she loved to dress up and proudly considered herself to be a ‘girly girl’), she was just as assertive in the fight against patriarchy. She never saw these things as mutually exclusive. She took up space as a disabled woman (and never allowed for condescension or patronizing/ableist sentiments), and understood the difference between the social and medical models of disability (a subject we would spend quite a bit of time on with each other).

She was the embodiment of ‘the personal is political’. She understood that politics was defined as not only the relationship to labor/class, but also, the relationships we have with each other. Because she was consistent in how she lived, she never had to alter or minimize her language, according to whomever she was speaking with. As a teacher, she uplifted students who were otherwise underestimated by the system. She valued them as much as she valued someone she considered a friend. Even if you held a different ideological or political position, she aimed to figure out why you held that position, and treated you with the same levels of humanity in her critique and questions as she would anyone else, because you are a person, and she didn’t feel the need to use the same tactics as capitalist society to beat anyone down. As long as your objectives were not to harm, she’d come to an understanding about the differences. Her analysis and wit were sharp as a fresh blade, so if you were questioned by her, you better come with a similar sharpness.

Despite (unfortunately) being remote, i am truly humbled and grateful to have been asked to say a few words for her celebration of life. Here were my words:

She was music. She was beauty. She was sharp. She was wise.

She is cicely. My friend cicely.

And i love her forever. Thank you cicely, for everything.