Once upon this time, Toni, we resented the art of writing eulogies. It’s been a brutal week, month, year, decade. We’re living the book of mean people. God help us children. There’s been no mercy. News of your departure came from our daughter via text, which we read immediately after waking up this morning. It was actually you who woke us up from the start. The Bluest Eye punched ours black and blue in high school, when we were just starting to call out the bullies in our own history by name. You taught us the origin of ourselves. You taught us to sing our way home on the train with ink. Sitting on a fire escape in Brooklyn, we read every one of your novels twice, sometimes three times—an infinite library at the end of which we both found and lost our jazz. For this reason, we write in the plural. For this reason, we wake up each morning to the blank page, trying to write paradise with the wisdom of Solomon. What moves at the margin of our dancing minds threatens to burn our books. But for you—and for us—our beloved, we will keep remembering, even if our mouths fill with blood. We will keep breathing and writing and feeding the source of our self-regard. Thank you, thank you, Toni, for living our best life.
