Mam fought for people who had nothing and everything stacked against them. She never once thought she was doing anything special. That was the most special thing about her.
Mensajes
Palabras sentidas de amor, recuerdo y consuelo.
Josephine Reyes represented everything we want in educational leadership: rigor, compassion, and an absolute refusal to accept that where you come from determines where you go.
She caught me crying in the hallway in fifth grade and brought me into her office. We talked for an hour. She called my mom. She made a plan. She followed up. For three years.
Ms. Reyes was my principal for four years. She knew every student's name and family situation. Every one. That school had 600 kids.
We served on the city arts council together for six years. Lilly never let bureaucracy become an excuse for inaction. She found a way. Every single time.
Aunt Lilly was the coolest person in our family by a wide margin. She let me help paint a mural when I was eight and never once treated me like a child.
Mamá told us every night before bed that we could do anything. She said it like it was fact. Because to her it was.
Josie changed a hundred lives in that school. She changed mine first. I am who I am because of you.
My daughter was luminous. That is the only word. I have no idea how the world keeps turning without her light in it.
I was a student in her first Youth Art Initiative class in 2006. I am now a working artist. I would not be without her.
Lilly's mural on the corner of 14th and Broadway is the first thing I see every morning on my way to work. It always makes me walk a little taller.
Mom taught me that art is not decoration — it's argument. I will keep making that argument for both of us.
Lilly, you painted the world brighter than it was. I look at every mural and I see your hands. I will spend the rest of my life doing that.
His album "Tierra Mía" came out the year my parents immigrated here. They played it every Sunday for as long as I can remember. It was the sound of home.
Sam and I performed together for 20 years. He had a tone on that guitar that I have never heard from anyone else. Something warm and a little heartbroken. Perfect.
Samuel, you filled our home with music for 40 years. Now the silence is so loud I can't sleep. I love you forever.
She made me read Simone de Beauvoir on our second date. I thought it was a test. It was. I passed. Forty years.
Her book "The Weight of Ought" changed how I understand obligation entirely. I assign it to every ethics class I teach. That will continue.