By the time I was 20 years old, I’d easily been to more funerals, or as we tend to call them, celebration of life ceremonies - including my own father’s - than to any other kind of ritualized ceremonies, including weddings and graduations. I’ve lived close to the veil between the living and dying all my life, a late-in-life baby born into a large, older family.

I don’t believe in death the way our society portrays it. He always encouraged, even cajoled me to write more, especially because he knew my secret - I always knew I had a talent for writing, but not always the pleasure and the discipline to do it. Kam is, in part, the reason why I am here, working at the News. 11, and Kam always called me on my birthday.Īnother loss, another acknowledgement of a new ancestor. I am a believer in number synchronicity.Įleven horses two plus nine equals 11. I thought it was strange at the time, but two days later, when I found out that Kam had passed away, I understood. The horse lowered its head a bit for me to pet it - or at least I interpreted it that way, not knowing a thing about horse behavior. While Vesper yipped in delight, I was taken aback like, “Really - what just happened?” I was close to one of the horses, who was staring at me with great intensity.

Eleven horses circled up in a kind of formation, and in single file galloped over to us, and lined up just in front of the fence where we stood, gazing at us. While we were watching, they did something unusual - at least to us. The day that it happened, I was walking my doggie, Vesper, near the Riding Center, and as we often do on our journey, we stopped to watch the horses grazing and playing in the field. But he had struggled mightily over the previous year, battling a horribly painful cancer that caused him great suffering, though he was in remission when he made the transition. Agile and light on his feet, he was a tremendous dancer who was fluent in Japanese, an anime lover of cosplay and a hard-core gamer. A gentle giant at nearly seven feet tall, he worked as a bouncer for the Atlanta club scene. He is survived by his wife of 17 years and two grown children. 29, Kam decided he didn’t want to live anymore, and completed suicide. But somehow, spirit-connected, our friendship deepened, and he became one of my closest friends, and his wife, Denise, my sister. Then my second and third heartbreak after he married, twice, people who were not me. I met him the summer between my sophomore and junior years at Spelman College after, unbeknownst to me, he saw me on a bus in Atlanta and decided to miss his stop to talk to me. It was a skit, a satire of what it might be like to call 911 in Atlanta that was so on point it made me laugh out loud. I was going to send it to Kam the day I found out he was gone.

Trauma center second opinion live skit