Evergreen—Spirit between us.
Content disclaimer: death, suicide, mental illness
—bell hooks, “on self-recovery”, in talking back: thinking feminist, thinking black
This morning, I read two poems by Mary Oliver about her dog running off, or running away. Incidentally, as I was beginning my morning rituals, I was already thinking about loss, namely the deaths of others I’ve experienced in my life. Kind souls. People I respected, cared for, were close with on some level—people I had relationships with.
As Oliver writes about her dog, perhaps named Bazougey, as one of the poems is named, she refers to “his shining curls, his honest eyes, his beautiful barking.” It is at the end of the poem that she refers to these of her dog’s attributes, reflected from her own heart-filled memory of him. In arriving here, she has taken us through a proverbial springtime woods, evergreen with the mystical essence of life. She writes in part:
“See how the violets are opening, and the leaves
unfolding, the streams gleaming and the birds
singing. What does it make you think of?
His shining curls, his honest eyes, his
beautiful barking.”
Though it is unclear in the poetry whether Bazougey has truly transitioned to Spirit, or is simply following a mighty trail of ants, far away from his human, Oliver likens the essence of her dog to essential expressions of nature that invoke his spirit. Springtime expressions. Expressions of evergreen. And while the season of spring certainly evolves into another with its own spiritual attributes, the feeling of springtime is youthful, frolic, play, “I can do this forever!”. It’s rather infatuation than a season where death sings its loudest song. Yet, death is always singing. Because to go from winter to spring means a warm dying; a transformation of an icy chill. Dying toward something that burgeons. Death then, perhaps, is not, or does not have to be strictly a loss, but also an opening.
What died so I could come into this world? What will die with me when it’s time for me to depart?
For all the friends I have known who have died, their dying awakened something in me. Something of an essential nature—completely intangible, yet securely present. An ability to feel Spirit speaking, moving, especially through the sacred remembrance of these certain souls.
I was in my early twenties when a friend died. He was the co-director of the first writing center I taught in. A kind man with a big head, thick, brown hair, thick-framed black glasses. His initial is A. We’d traveled together with our other director to Germany for a European Writing Center’s Association conference. I was a student, a peer tutor, with my professional colleagues who’d always treated me as an equal. A had even looked to me for how to adapt to our writing center’s culture, since I’d been there for a couple of years when he’d started his new role as Associate Director. One day he was there, signing off on our pizza budget for our late-night writing session during finals. Another day, he was no longer with us. I remember sobbing in front of peers and colleagues, friends and his family, at his memorial, held on the 8th floor of another building on campus. Brown walls. Dim lighting. A space reserved for special events. I’d sobbed because I couldn’t articulate my care in words through my then 21-year-old mind, however well-versed with words I was at the time. A was no longer.
A few years later, it was my cousin and dear Godbrother, Somadina, who transitioned. My father had called with the news, and I was immediately hysterical. I remember feeling a sensation of “not again!”. My father told me to get myself together, which triggered more angry emotion and a feeling of unfairness. But I would come to see that his response likely came from a personal place of emotional management in the face of the incessant deaths throughout his own tender life.
Somadina was a twin born alongside his sister, Chisim, after almost a decade of his parents’ childlessness. This is this story I was told by my parents of my uncle and aunty—Ibezim and Ugo. My Godparents. Somadina, a gentle spirit. I see his soft, big smile and kind eyes in my mind as I write. I have memories of us together in our late teens and early twenties moving around our homes in Isuochi, Nigeria, compounds adjacent, which meant we could freely be with each other—our families forever connected.
Somadina’s hands were always ready to help: carry, peel, open, tinker, write. He was an engineer and a poet. Soma was a poet long before I grew to care for poetry. Soma was the first genuine poet in my life. 2016 died into 2017 and Soma had made a statement that he would write a poem a day for the year. I said I’d join him. I was half-serious, not yet taken with the essence of the craft, the artform. In our relaxed conversation, laid up on the couch, managing the spacious heat of the late morning, I remarked that each day is generally uncommon; that one never knows what day of the year will be significant.
On April 10th, 2017, it was announced that Somadina Chukwumerije was no longer.
It was spring of 2021, and I was moving through a personal life transition—institutional life into nomadic existence; a death into a kind of freedom. I received a long text from a childhood sister-friend that her sister, N—my closer sister-friend back in that era—had taken her life. Immediate drop. Immediate silence. And then the tears. And then the tenderness. But I did not ask life “why?”. I did not clamor in my internal world “not again!”. Because on some level, I knew.
Dying from adolescence to early adulthood, I could feel N’s spirit struggling to stay in this reality. When we were tweens, she’d had a fixation on River Phoenix and his drug overdose, leading to his own young death. I’d thought it was odd to find such a thing fascinating at only 12…13… but who was I to judge? Instead, we’d played with N’s new puppy, Miley; growing with Miley, sleepovers, snacks, then boys and that drama. Eventually, I’d moved away, and when I’d return home, N felt a little more lost in my perception; a little more sunken into herself. The death had since begun, I see upon reflection. As far as I know, N didn’t die of a physical sickness that her body couldn’t cope with. As far as I know, she chose to die to her body and this reality when her mind couldn’t harmoniously cohere. I didn’t clamor “not again!” when I’d heard of N’’s death because I inherently respected her choice. However, her death haunted me, her kind sister, her family and friends—all who survived her—for years.
In June 2025, as I celebrated the homegoing of another friend who died—I will write about her soon—mystery connected me and N’s sister, R, once again. She’d be returning to our hometown for a baby shower that weekend and agreed to meet. A meeting after over a decade, different cities and countries lived, careers transitioned through, and a suicide between us. It was clear to me that N was bringing us together.
R came to my house, as she had done countless times in our youth; I found her sitting on a rock planted in the grass out front as I opened the door. Like always, I towered over her in our hug, my 6’1” to her 5’. We walked toward the lake across the huge bridge by our middle school, and along the way, I spotted two mature dandelions, ripe for the wishing. It was a gorgeous early summer afternoon, just before sunset. As we walked, we caught up on life, but most of our conversation was about N. It felt like she was there with us: the three of us laughing, playing, twirling, creating as we always did—our own kind of prayer to life to keep it feeling good. R filled in the gaping holes I had in my mind about N’s life trajectory since I’d been gone. I witnessed a feeling of wholeness swell in my psyche. It was becoming clearer to me that N, now in her evergreen essence, needed some kind of reconciliation—the very thing that those who choose suicide often forego in their decision. She’d left that on this side of the veil. And, on some level, R and I were two people who knew her deeply—who could understand her heart. We were her sisters.
At another, smaller, bridge at the lake, R and I looked into the water, glistening from the sun slowly lowering, the earth gently turning. R remarked that it felt like N was with us. Her words to my feelings. I offered that we say a wish for N as she freed her spirit—a wish, a hope, some words of understanding and affirmation. And we finally blew our dandelions, sending love into the ethers, dropping the stems into the water.
The homegoing ritual was complete.
I know I didn’t need to make myself available to support N’s dying, not on a material level. But in essence, I observe that my presence was purposeful. Weeks later, R messaged me about her world feeling open again after having felt shut down and dark for years. I, too, felt a lightness and freedom that I didn’t know I’d been missing. A freedom that had been perhaps shrouded in the darkness of another’s looming spirit. Through that, I learned even more potently that we are all connected; that spiritual attunement is crucial; that sometimes only time and circumstance reveal why people enter our lives, and why they exit.
Traveling back to June of 2022, I’d learned of the passing of another friend, colleague, and incidentally the co-director of the second writing center I’d worked in. His initial is K. A kind, queer, gentleman. Fabulous with his pashminas and neckties. Eloquent with his words. Caring in his presence and vision. And Danish. I smile considering his earnestness, presence, emotional availability. At some point during my time in that program, K was often out sick. When he’d return, he’d have a jitteriness about him. Unfocused, as I’d remarked in my mind during one early afternoon stint of office work before I left that program. Then in June 2022, when I’d been out of contact with K for over a year, I learned what palliative care was and that K was receiving it.
And then he was no longer.
At this stage of my path, I was engaged in poetry so much that it felt like the poetry was writing me. What, then, could I do but honor K through a poem? So I’d written Sadness and Celebration and eventually included it as a dedication to K in my first poetry collection, Poetry and the immediate: A collection of sensed spaces.
Sadness and Celebration
“I carry sadness and celebration.
At least today, and maybe, probably, highly likely,
many other days as well.
I carry the weight of trying on the right side of my neck,
deep stretches sending signals to my tear ducts to release
the whisper of why?
The sister of shadows is the light of the sun on my chest,
a deep celebratory, self-congratulating yes
to doing it another day. Breathing another day.
Presence for another day. Presents to self for showing up
in the sweet surrender like the timeless peace it is.
I carry sadness and celebration
so my sad knows it only goes up from here and
the celebrant knows to make the most of her high.
A humility so tender, so bright,
I wonder if this is humility at all.
I carry sadness and celebration,
cousins born in the same house,
one by day and one by night.
One by kisses and one by fright.
One by more and one by less;
both from the whole of the heart.
I carry sadness and celebration—
liberation through the generations.
I carry life and death and
great mother and father of my soul,
deep protection to the bone.”
My heart was softening to death. N’s death still stayed with me at that time, not yet freed from the burden of a certain kind of attachment. Receiving the news of K, all I could do was begin to now integrate death into my life.
A few months later, I journeyed to Costa Rica for an artist residency and fixated on the compost heap at the back of the villa in much of my exploratory photography. The dying of material. The decay of plant life. The way death would nurture the lives of insects. And how predatory animals would climb through the jungle in the early morning and snatch, kill, a chicken, just moments after I removed my shoes from the clothesline, still damp, not yet dry from overnight. Life was happening, and that included death. It always has.
These days, though, it is C who comes to heart most. A shining spirit of a rainbow. A fallible human, as we all are, who journeyed consciously through life, and through breast cancer, and ultimately transitioned. I met C when I’d first moved to Abu Dhabi to work in the writing program where I met dear K. An artist herself, C was also co-founder of an art collective she created with her sister abroad and brought to the UAE. She was part Palestinian and moved, bounced, loved, with the imbued joy and resilience of her heritage. Her smile is wide, her eyes bright, in my own mind’s eye as I write. About a month into my residency in Abu Dhabi, I attended my first event with her art collective and C welcomed me with open arms, like a sister. Like a genuine friend. We remained connected throughout the years, even moving to Portugal around the same time at our own paces, to our own respective locations. It was on a video call then that she first told me about the cancer and her previously fraught relationship with her body. What an act of trust to share something so personal, so sincere. I held her confidence like a pearl.
Time persisted, and eventually C’s human life unfolded into death, as all of ours eventually will. It was May 2025. I’d had a dream or insight or knowing, a lightening of my spirit, that told me: “C has passed on.” Then shortly after, I knew that when I’d click on her IG story, it would be an official announcement. It was. I made myself available for the virtual tribute that C’s amazing family and friends organized to remember her—a truly special, one-of-a-kind soul. I listened, shared my piece; I’d learned things about C that I didn’t know but that my heart could easily believe. And then within a few weeks, I found myself saying yes to supporting N’s homegoing. Why should only those who died a socially acceptable death receive such a tribute? Surely a stigmatized transition doesn’t negate the pureness of a person’s essence. Suicide or other, N deserved to be honored. This is what C’s passing made possible in my own sense of understanding at that time.
A year has passed, and I continually feel C’s kind, empowered wisdom that encourages me to live fully, and at the level of the pure heart. Her smile and warmth remain a compass.
Incidentally, I realize that C’s transition occurred the day before Somadina’s birthday. It is Somadina’s birthday as I write this draft. Happy heavenly birthday, brother.
I want to touch on a death that demonstrated to me the nuanced, weaving, gently settling nature of friendship. Roberto. Another kind, warm, friendly spirit. A fellow Leo. A leader. Honest. Available. Generous and easygoing. I met Roberto back in June 2021 when I lived in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico for six weeks. Our relationship began with him as the go-to taxi driver I’d call whenever I wanted to navigate Puerto—before I’d built the inner confidence to hop on the back of collectivos to the mercado, or join another traveler in hitchhiking. Since 2021, I traveled back to Puerto several times, and always called on Roberto to let him know when I’d be in, where I’d be staying, where I wanted to go, what I felt I needed to do. He’d be there with a smile, his taxi green and white, seats leathered brown, 0132 written on the side. He’d be standing outside his car, leaning back, one leg crossed over the other, holding his phone in one hand, pressing digital buttons with the pointer finger of his other hand. Glasses at the middle of his nose as he looked down, like an old man. Like a father.
“Hey! How you doing!” he would exclaim, his smile so bright, I could never tell if it was the blistering sun that made him squint, or genuinely the brightness in his heart. “I’m back!” I’d say, and get inside the too-damn-hot car, leather seats cooking whatever skin I had exposed.
We’d talk. On our drive to wherever I was staying, we’d talk. I’d ask him about his family; his kids each year growing up, going to school, traveling. I’d ask him about his accounting business. I knew that he not only worked as a taxi driver, but also managed other taxi drivers. So when Roberto wasn’t available, it was Domingo he’d connect me with. At some point, walking through Puerto, I could see the likes of Roberto or Domingo driving their taxis with others in tow, and wave and smile familiarly. This is a feeling of home.
But Roberto wasn’t always nice. He wasn’t always patient. Yes, he sometimes didn’t let me pay him to take me to the airport, insisting I could pay him next time. A next time that would never be guaranteed. And he never, ever, approached me in an exploitative way sexually or financially. But there were times I feel I leaned on our kinship a little too much, not communicating the way I should, having him wait for me longer than he should, causing him to lose business. Or times when he didn’t communicate with me in an appropriate timeframe, having me searching for different methods to get around, wondering if he was so reliable after all. The stuff of relating. Nevertheless, on August 20th, I would send him a birthday message and receive kind gratitude in return. The stuff of friendship.
In preparation for my most recent visit to Puerto Escondido in January 2025, I giddily and expectantly messaged Roberto to let him know my arrival date and time. I trusted he’d pick me up or organize it with someone who could.
“Hola
I’m his son
B
Unfortunately Roberto passed away
I can gladly take you to Mazunte”
The texts came in one after the other, just minutes after my initial messages. My heart softened and my tear ducts opened. Sadness touched me. Interestingly, though, one of my first thoughts as I read these messages was about how B had to move back to Puerto Escondido to handle these death affairs; I knew he’d been studying and working and ostensibly making a life outside of Oaxaca. I’d surprised myself at how I cared about Roberto’s family life.
After offering my condolences, my exchanges with B continued as they would with any other driver in any new city in a different country. When I arrived to Puerto this time, I was met with a driver who had a similar smile to Roberto’s, but in him I saw unsafety. In the hour-ish drive to Mazunte, I felt his leeching unrefined sexual energy approaching me with his intrusive questions about my life, causing me to cover my legs, put a protective shield around myself.
That trip to Puerto felt like a final one, at least for a particular life season. Though I lived with presence and joy, soaking in the textures of my experience then and there, nothing felt the same as it had when Roberto was around, simply being part of my Mexican experience. Simply being a friend.
The latest death has been the death of my dear grandmother, Mercy Ottah. My last living grandparent since 2003. My mother’s mother. Her death, as far I as perceive it, included—or catalyzed—the death of many family and emotional dynamics. My mom had remarked that Grandma was sick, in and out of clinic, visiting a native healthcare specialist. Mom shared updates on Grandma, inherited, honest, natural worry gently lacing her words. Also like my prayerful Christian Grandma, my mom held a tone of “overcoming” in her words. But my body was telling me a different story.
Late summer 2025, about a week after my birthday, my stomach was in knots. There was no discernible reason—not the food I was eating; not anything emotional. I simply observed myself as life carried on and I learned of my Grandma’s sickness from time to time. In my head, I figured she’d stay alive forever—because she’d survived too much to actually die. Like, that would be anticlimactic. It would be ironic. It would be… human.
My mind had one story, but my body knew change was coming. My stomach was churning, energetically expelling. Incidentally, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, the spleen and stomach are aligned with the Earth element, which governs nourishment, security, trust, nurturance, and the ability to be safe, welcome, and present. The mothering nature of life, if you will. This knowledge was not lost on me as I navigated these stomach pangs. Then on August 27, 2025, I came out into the kitchen to see my mother sitting quietly on the couch. She was meant to be in Chicago on a business trip—but she was sitting quietly on the couch in the kitchen. I greeted her, wary. Noticed the quietness of her aura. I asked her what she was doing home. She was reluctant to tell me. I knew it was death. Her solemnity spoke before she did.
“Grandma is gone,” she said, her voice trying to be sure, but ending in a broken whisper.
And my inner world went white. Quiet. An unraveling.
Much has transpired since August 2025—dignified death rites and customs in Nigeria; the emotional and financial support of family and friends throughout the world; a shift in duty from one Ada (first born daughter) to another. From my Grandma to my mother. A tenderness in communication. Me noticing my mother’s aging, noticing her own hurt little girl from time to time. Noticing the way that suffering had become a DNA expression passed through our lineage—on both sides, but the feminine experience holds a special significance for me as a woman.
But even as I notice the suffering, I notice the subtlety of abiding choice; the choice each person makes in evolving the lineages they emerge from. I have to notice the ways my mother lives that are the evolved ways of my Grandma, and assume my Grandma lived in ways evolved from her own mothers.
Where am I in all this noticing? I am also choosing. Choosing not to suffer—double negative. Rather, I am choosing ease, safety, pleasure, wholeness, and freedom in my body and mind. I choose Grace. I choose sovereignty. And the amazing thing about my choice of sovereignty is that my earthly Grandma may have admonished me, guided by her more dogmatic Christian identity. But I know my Grandma in Spirit celebrates the freedom I have chosen for myself—for us. The freedom to remember, to listen and to feel and to storytell. The freedom to honor truth in its multifarious expressions. The freedom to love BIG and dance LOUD and adapt to the seasons of life as I am called.
Because one day, I will also be no longer. It is the simple way of things.
So each day, each breath, I die to create space for the evolution that wants to happen. Because evolution is the simple way of things. I die to create space. And in dying to live, I believe I am honoring Life—this evergreen.
Gratitude.
