Palesa in Pietermaritzburg

I've been scanning all my old photographs of Palesa. Here she is, thirteen years old, at our dining room table by the window on the sixth floor. We lived there during the four years I was professor and head of the Department of Performance Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She loved this floral dress and wore it to the US Embassy in Johannesburg when we collected her final adoption papers and all the documents we needed for travel to our new life in the USA. 

I've had a hard day today, August 11, 2021. It's three weeks and two days since she died. Some days I think I have realized it, taken it in; other days I don't want to get out of bed. Today was the latter. 

She was HIV+ and had been fighting Covid-19 since June. She was gasping for breath, wheezing. In her last voice message her chest rattles and whistles between each breath. "It hurts," she says. "It hurts so bad in my chest when I try to breathe." She begins to cry, "I wish you were here because you are the only person who understands me." When the riots started and the grocery stores were set on fire, the toxic smoke finished her. Everything we are all afraid of: the viruses, climate change, governmental collapse, oligarchic greed. Everything we are all afraid of killed her.

I spent hours today reading through our messages on Facebook since 2018. Again and again she told me, "Don't worry, I'll be OK." And "I'm strong. I can get through this." We were in touch nearly every week these last three years, even if only to send hearts and reminders: I love you. Over and over, week after week, year after year: I love you. I miss you. Remember when we.... 

Now, three weeks and two days of silence.