Preparing.
I don’t know if callings always arrive with grand announcements.
Mine didn’t.
It came quietly, over time, through stories, loss, and remembrance.
I was born into a family that navigated grief on both sides. Before I understood death, I understood gathering. I understood people coming together to remember someone they loved. I understood that stories seemed to matter most when someone could no longer tell their own.
Growing up in New Orleans, I was surrounded by a culture that mourned deeply and celebrated life just as boldly. I watched my mother stand before congregations and read obituaries with care, diction, and reverence.
I longed for her poise and would have given anything to inherit her gift for delivering every detail with intention.
“Did you know them?” I’d often ask. Sometimes she did. Sometimes she didn’t.
She was simply that personable, and even now, language feels inadequate when I try to describe her.
Long before I had language for it, I was learning that there is something sacred about telling someone’s story well.
Later, my mother—an aspiring actress, writer, wife, waitress, bingo hall worker, real estate agent, aviations manager, student, teacher, now, child protective services worker, and, perhaps most importantly, my first example of reinvention—accepted a position as a secretary at a cemetery.
One day, she handed me a folder filled with her own wishes. That may frighten some people. It didn’t frighten me. Even then, I understood what she was doing. She was teaching me that love prepares.
She was preparing me to live without her.
I was still listening. Still watching. Still learning.
As a young girl, I found myself creating memorials and murals for people I admired. The deaths of artists like Aaliyah and lives of people like Dorothy Dandridge deeply affected me. Like so many others, I became captivated by the memory and mythology surrounding Tupac. Had Hurricane Katrina not taken some of my physical keepsakes, I’m sure my teachers could attest to the countless reports I wrote about him. I wanted people to see the human being beyond the self-proclaimed thug. More than anything, he taught me never to ignore the urgency of purpose.
Looking back, I realize I was already asking questions about legacy, remembrance, and what remains after someone is gone.
I just didn’t know it yet.
Years later, after earning a degree in English Language & Literature from Savannah State University, I was entrusted with helping tell the story of one of my childhood best friend, Telfrey, after his untimely passing. I wrote his obituary and assisted with his homegoing service.
Then I was called again. And again.
Each time, I thought I was simply helping.
I didn’t realize I was being prepared.
Prepared to sit with grief without rushing it.
Prepared to honor memories with care.
Prepared to find words when they seemed impossible to find.
Prepared to preserve stories with dignity and humanity.
The further I look back, the more I see a thread connecting it all.
The little girl listening to obituaries.
The young visionary creating memorials on her bedroom walls.
The woman entrusted with telling stories in moments of loss.
The aspiring funeral director answering a calling that has quietly followed her all along.
In The Event of My Demise did not begin when I launched a business.
In many ways, it began years earlier.
I finally gave the calling a name.
Becoming.
As I continue my journey toward becoming a funeral director and building a Funeral Home & Legacy Studio, my hope is to make conversations about death feel less taboo.
Death should not be feared into silence.
Not welcomed early, but respected as a natural part of life worthy of reflection, conversation, and preparation while we are still here to tell our own stories.
Along the way, I will continue creating memorials and editorials inspired by the lives and legacies of people we all know, using culture, remembrance, and even celebrity passings as opportunities to consider what it means to live, to leave an impact, and ultimately, to be remembered.
Because stories don’t only belong to the departed.
They belong to the living.
And every day, we’re writing our own.
