Thank You Very Sweet

When we came back to Qiyana’s that Monday evening, I decided to get on facebook.

I wanted to create a photo album, I wanted to share pictures of Kesner and me. And to my amazement, when I signed on to facebook, LOVE was all over  my page.  I couldn’t believe it, I was so touched.  So many people left such beautiful comments and sweet messages of hope and inspiration.  People from all stages of my life.  I read every post and every message, I was immensely thankful.

That’s when it really began to sink in…

People knew about this. 

This hadn’t happened in a vacuum.  This wasn’t news that was just confined to Trenton, or to New Jersey; people knew, from across the country and over seas.

and people were saying his beautiful name: ‘ I’m so sorry to hear about you and KESNER…’  ‘may KESNER’s memory live on in your heart..’  ‘KESNER sounds like he was an incredible young man….’

I couldn’t help but be tickled, hearing his name was like sweet music to my ears.  Kesner placed fourth in the city council election because he didn’t have enough name recognition. People were constantly mispronouncing his name. But he was so proud of his name, a strong name for a strong man.  Our plan for the next campaign was to make sure that he had adequate name recognition in the city.  We were just getting started, his political career was just beginning…

And now here it was that he was dead and everyone knew his name, it was beautifully ironic. Tragic. Sweet. It tickled me, a little….

He was still dead, so it only tickled me a little.

A memorable moment was when Susan Taylor called.  My sorority sister, Kim, and I were sitting on Qiyana’s balcony having a conversation with my Mom.  Mom was telling us both a story, when she was interrupted by a phone call.  She looked down at her phone and said casually:  “oh, it’s Susan Taylor”.  Then she proceeded to answer her phone and say:

“Susan, you heard….”

She left us on the balcony so that she could speak with Susan privately.  As soon as she left, Kim looked at me and burst out laughing, she was laughing so hard that she had tears streaming down her face. She said “Kimmy is that THE Susan Taylor?? Like from Essence??” It was.  Kim thought it was hysterical that Susan ‘heard….’    She said: “its not like your mom said, Susan let me tell you what happened.  She said ‘Susan, you heard…'” 

Incredible Susan Taylor

It was true, even Susan Taylor heard about Kesner.  His beautiful name even graced her lips.

We had good PR.  Andrea, Kristen, Dawn, Jayne, Barb…  They were all responsible for forwarding the newspaper articles about Kesner across the country; not only had people heard, but they read about how fantastic he was. It was amazing.

So I signed on facebook and I posted some pictures.  We had some beautiful shots.  The first set were from Spain Restaurant in Newark, we went to dinner with Courtney and Cory there.

A professional photographer had been dining in the restaurant and she offered to take photos of us.  She told us to ‘act natural’ and she got some nice shots.  I loved the one of him whispering in my ear the most, Courtney took that one.  It looked like he was kissing me on the cheek.

My favorite

I just stared at it, remembering our sweet romance. I decided that it would be my facebook profile picture.

I also loved the pictures of us laughing together.  I was so thankful that the photographer had captured the energy of his laughter.

I loved laughing with him…

And then there were pics that I took along the campaign trail and on election day.  And then there were pics from our Poconos trip, dinner at Mara’s, and our hike in the Trenton Marshlands.

On our hike in the Trenton Marsh Lands…

I was so thankful to have so many pictures, they told a story; they seemed classic and sad, yet beautiful.  And tragic.  I named the album:  Kesner.

Sharing the photo album on facebook lifted my spirits some.

Before I signed off, I noticed a message from Kesner’s ex girlfriend in my inbox.  The message said: “Kim, how are you doing?  This is a tough one for me.” 

I thought that was nice, nice that she would reach out.  She didn’t have to do that, we don’t know each other.  I responded, saying: “I’m not good.  I feel  like someone took a shovel and dug a hole in my chest. Thank you for reaching out to me, I’m sure this must be impacting you in the same way…”  She responded almost immediately, saying: “Kesner and I were soul mates. He would have wanted me to reach out.” 

HUH?

Delete.

Enough facebook for one night.  I signed off immediately.

© Copyright Thank You Very Sweet, 2011