This poem is me mapping my way back to that lineage, while leaving footsteps alongside so many others.

What is a Black woman without her lineage?

A question ringing in my ears like the thought of a body running without blood. Without juicy flesh and tight stretched tendons, but still knowing how to dance. Without bones and sharp and round edges, but instinctively knows when to pull itself in and spread itself out, when it feels airy, when it tastes rigid. I don’t know if it exists, these lines haven’t yet led me there, but they must merge somewhere. They groove down and slope like they were shaped.

Who carved me into this mound of a person I am?

From the earth, they clawed out this clay, buried deep in rich water, and as they started to slide their fingers through the jutted and gritted edges, they envisioned me. If I look close, I can still make out their faintly and smooshed in thumb and finger prints. Their lines are strong and easy to see, impossible for me to read, but I feel them. The ever so slightly raised bumps still catch when I run a hand over desperately trying to remember when I was held.

There’s a secret, a long kept, marrow deep secret, that I think I can’t know.

Can’t remember what it felt like to feel tied to anyone, in the ways of thick ropes that hope to never fray. I only know of cheap twine that gives out every so often, too often, and mocks me with its temporary. The only knots I know deeply, I run my fingers over and are pulled tight in the parts of me I can’t see. I feel around, hoping that my fingers can undo them because they’ve seen them before, in a light I don’t ever recall casting upon my face. If I tighten my eyes and let my fingers move on their own, will they guide me? Am I meant to untie myself? To free myself from these binds? Are these knots in me binds at all? Maybe they are reminders.

But all the reminders I know hurt.

Scars that faded but stayed raised. Flickers behind my eyes I still clench to darken, but they punch through like beams, or spotlights on what my feet lace my mind to run from. Bite marks on my nails, till they bruise a deep reddish purple hue outlined in black, lining up with the bruises from falling around and never seeming to see what sticks out, or rolls about beneath me.

Clumsy.

I was always called clumsy. Never knew my way around places I grew up in, took my first steps in, cried for my mother before her breaths no longer mixed into the BBQ smoke in my granny’s front yard, in the salon that I played in too many Saturday mornings and Friday nights. Bumped into salon chairs, with chipped handles, and peeling black leather head rest that I swept around so many times I dreamed dizzy at night. I always missed the too low but still raised step into the salon that was my after school program, Sunday school, my favorite radio station, and talk show whispering things to me I always fumbled through in my retelling. Always jerked into the hotcomb because my scalp started singing melodies after being the wrong kind of tender for too long. I kept hoping to know my way better the next time.

But next time, I just bruised harder.

Deeper. Until the bruises didn’t read as the old tale of clumsy. They read like a map to my deep unknowing of what it is they made contact with. Inside, outside, in school, at church, in my aunties house, my cousin’s apartment, my mother’s car. They found their path every single time, and I still felt led to nowhere. Only felt the radiating pain that knew more than me. The blood rushing quick to the affected parts of me. I felt nothing, but I know I heard something.

A knock.

Not the light rapping of knuckles, but the shake of tight fist making contact in drawn out succession, but when I raise my hand and mimic the sound, after I place my ear as flat as possible to the wall, I never hear another one. I hear soft echoes, and I know again, but all I hear is me. Maybe I keep striking the wall where it’s hollow. Maybe I just haven’t found the part that doesn’t echo. The part that feels like there are ears held anxiously against the wall, mirroring mine. The part that gives way to those who listen. To those who know. But my knuckles can’t see or feel those old grooves. Everywhere they land is still smooth, never touched before, and leads to sounds unheard before, but I still seek the familiar. My familiar. For my knuckles to land in a spot known before, to me, to someone who hands held flesh like mine, but I only get faint echoes.

& still I knock.

Quick word from Maud Farquhar

I’ve been easing into this year, and hope you are too. This is the first of many new and slightly different musings as I navigate what ODALAD is and is not, just as I do the same with grief and death. I thank you if you’ve been here, and welcome you if you haven’t, and thank you in advance for the grace.

Talk to you soon 🤍

I haven’t written to you all since mid 2025. I’ve missed sharing in this space, and the warm reception I always receive, but like all of you know by now, it is sometimes hard to grieve, do the work, and live at the same time. For a good stretch, I had to choose to only live, or else nothing else would be. Slowly but surely, I have returned back to my writing, to my exploration, to the curious place that brought me here, and now I return here with all that an more.

I wrote this letter to the community I’ve been building IRL through my distribution, Grief in full Bloom, through our end of the year greeting cards, but it felt so raw and so aligned, I wanted to share it here. Maybe within it, if you’re open to it, you’ll find something as well.

Dear loved ones,

I often try to start off with something positive or gentle, but with this letter, I want to start off real yet warm. Grief. It is heavy and deep enough to stand on it’s own. It is expansive enough to seep into our lives and make it the ray of light we see from the sky, and force us to ignore the warmth of the sun. It is strong enough to invade our bones, and pull our blood from flowing limbs, all into our aching hearts, and make us feel as though it may explode from the sheer depth of our longing.

I was told over and over and over again to just give it time. I often interpreted that as though grief would grow weaker over time. That it wouldn’t sit on my chest and steal every breath I managed to get out. I thought it would maybe curl into itself and release me from its grip. I thought, hoped, wished, prayed, and cursed it to release me. It didn’t after year one. It sank deeper in year two. It seemed to move into me permanently in year 3, and ever since, consciously or unconsciously, I’ve made room for it to infiltrate every aspect of my life, even to my own detriment. Why? Because most days it feels like the only real thing.

I would laugh and it always felt like it came out of someone else’s mouth. I would smile, and if I saw my reflection, it felt foreign and out of place. I would think of my future, sometimes months down the road, or just the next day, and felt like I was lying to myself believing that I could make it. Nothing felt real or possible or worth it, except my grief. That felt like the biggest and most constant thing in my life for a long time.

I walked into year 4 a couple months ago and found myself asking for something, anything, to pull me from this darkness that had its hooks in me, and I could feel desperately trying to swallow me whole. I was inches, seconds, blinks away from slipping away from myself and anything that was still worth it. And, right when I was closing my eyes and accepting that I would relinquish my existence to grief, I heard it.

Surrender.

And at first I resisted, I really did. Surrendering felt too close to giving up, and I didn’t think I was there, yet. But before I could convince myself I shouldn’t, I did. I unclenched both of my fists and let go. It was the only thing I hadn’t tried yet, just allowing myself to succumb to my own grief. Not to get over it, not to move forward, but simply to allow myself to grieve. Every time I pushed it down, or changed the subject, or filled my life with so much I couldn’t think straight, or worked until pure exhaustion forced my mind to rest, I was avoiding the inevitable thinking that was grieving. The gritting and bearing. The constant feeling of overwhelm and despair. The swallowing and silencing. I thought that is what it meant to grieve, but it isn’t.

We suffer from grief, but we did not suffer to grieve. We loved. We cared. We were vulnerable to grieve. We dared to be happy. To hope and dream. Because if we didn’t know the warmth of all these things, the warmth of existing because of or alongside people, we couldn’t feel the absence of them and their comforting heat so deeply. Our last physical act of love for the people that we lose, is to allow ourselves to grieve for them. Out loud. Without apology or expectation. Just wholly.

Grief is powerful, yes, but not more powerful than the laugh you keep trying to force yourself to forget. Not more powerful than the wrinkly fingers holding your hand you block out. Not stronger than the words that you pause in your mind, thinking they are an anchor to your pain, when they are you. Grief is not an action, or a feeling, it just is. There is no way around it. It is one of the only true inevitables like death and taxes. So, when you surrender to it, maybe you’ll learn that it truly is not a heavy anchor tethering you to hurt, but the tie keeping you a float, and here.

Grief demands a lot of us that we are not ready or willing to give up, but eventually you’ll realize that many, and maybe even all of those things, like your idea of what life ‘should’ be, or how you ‘should’ move forward, or that there is a way to ‘let go’, are already gone. I thought I was told to surrender to grief, like it was a demand or fight I would either win or lose, but now, I know instead, I was called to surrender to my own understanding. Surrender to being human, and flawed, and behind, and all the other things we tell ourselves when we can’t keep moving in the ways we used to.

As we exit this season, probably trying to find a way to be different or more, or maybe less, I invite you to allow yourself to be whatever and wherever you are. Even if you’re ‘still’. Still grieving, mourning, hurting, lost, confused, whatever. Even if you’re ‘still’ replaying those words, or listening to that song, or hugging that shirt, or crying into that pillow. There’s no place better than the one you’re in right now, really, there is no other place. Instead of resisting what everything inside of you is trying gently, yet firmly to coax you into, give yourself permission to,

Surrender.

Sincerely,

Maud Alcorn Farquhar

May has truly been a whirlwind of emotions, and I’ve bee slacking on ym post this month, and have learned to be ok with it. This space is not a place for me to to peacock and show all highlights and moments that feel like the warmth of the sun. This space, mostly, is for me to showcase that life after death is messy. There are many dark rooms, and long hallways of hurt that feel never ending. Places where light used to creep and remind you that this world is filled with so much joy, can start to feel like they are highlighting the emptiness of loss. There is complexity in healing from losing where you came from.

Im this complexity, I have been truly fortunate to still stick to my knowing, which is that the core of this space was to bring together folks who understand the aching of death outside of ourselves, and those who want to better understand. That is how ‘Grief in full Bloom’ transformed itself from an interesting ‘one day’ into a bountiful and warm series that has filled and healed me more than just about anything else.

On May 10th, in partnership with a wonderful org, A Radical Change, I was able to host the first ‘Grief in full Bloom’, which provided care packages to grieving Black and Brown folks navigating Mother’s Day. We filled these packages with snacks, self care items, beautiful flowers, and luscious plants, and were able to create a space that truly felt like an embrace. I thought folks would just come pick up their packages, say a quick thank you, and continue their day, but something unexpected but so freaking amazing happened; people stayed, communed, and loved on each other, while allowing themselves to be seen in a soft vulnerable state. There were smiles, tears, laughs, hugs, hand holding, and love poured freely over every person who entered the space. I could not have dreamt up a better outcome on what can be a difficult day.

I wanted to share this because it revealed two key things to me about my own grief;

My community needs me, and I need my community.

I’m savoring in the sweetness of this revelation, and all the amazing, and pure sunshine people I got to meet, hold, and feel from this event, while also gearing up for round two, ‘Grief in full Bloom: Fathers Day Edition’! These events are just the tip of the iceberg, because I’ve seen and felt with my own eyes and hands, how deeply my community is grieving, and how deeply we need spaces filled with people who understand, without having to ripe open our wounds, and find some joy and comfort in that knowing.

Note from the Author

Thank you to everyone who has supported my work here, and beyond! I am still getting a good groove on my posting cadence, but things will feel a bit more routine in coming weeks. This space and work means so much to me, and I’m excited to continue to push the boundaries of what it can look like, and show up in ways I didn’t know were needed or possible 🤍

Starting this with a deep, negro, spiritual sigh, because have you seen the state of the world? It’s some scurry shit, and yet we still keep it pushing. A blessing and a curse to have to still strike a path forward when truly there is no desire to do so. I would like to lay down, and stay down, whatever way that is possible, and for a while.

This month I posted my first interview on ODALAD, Capitalism Doesn’t Care That Your Mama Died, and it has been so well received. I really needed that boost to get me over that hump between idea and doing. That hump has often, and pretty brutally beat, my ass and I’ve found myself stopping myself before even starting, but, with this project I’ve been doing all I’ve set out to do. I’m interviewing some incredible people, doing some of the best writing I feel I’ve done in years, and people actually like it. All great, all important, all I’ve wanted but wait…

I still got this monkey called grief on my back, and the more I dive in, the more push back I receive within myself, EVEN THOUGH, this is what I’ve worked, asked, prayed, cried, and damn near begged for. This is the complexity that grief has exposed to me. It, on the surface, makes no sense but the more I learn and continue to live with my grief, it makes perfect sense.

For the first 6 months after my mother passed, I just wanted to lay down and cry. That’s it. I didn’t want to eat, to see people, to go outside, to talk. I just wanted to lay down and cry. Everything felt heavy and, annoying. I haven’t used that word much in this context, but yeah, it was annoying to have to do anything but just grieve my mother. That was what was on my mind, and the desires of my heart, but of course, because thats not how any of this played out, I had to get up and plan a funeral, hire a lawyer, make phone calls, pay bills, and within 3 months, I was back to work. At the time it felt like the only way through was over. I just had to throw myself into these things to distract from wanting to rot away.

And it worked, for a few months. I was back to work doing great, I had the funeral and got the lawyer, I was back into my mothers house and figuring it all out, until I could not any more. I wanted to keep going and stay in motion, but my desire was to lay down and cry, and I found my way back to that, even if it so happened to be at the worst time possible. I didn’t leave my home or bed except to use the bathroom and tend to my dog for a month straight.

In the full time I found myself horizontal, I really only cried 3 to 4 times. I mostly slept, and watched some pretty shitty TV. I thought the tears would be the action of this desire, but it was the laying down. Baby I was just, tired. I couldn’t really express that at the time, but now I can see that my grief was exhausting me. It had me swaying on my feet, dizzy and disoriented, and ready to drop where I stood. So many emotions came about at that time, some I had never felt before, but mostly? I was simply tired.

I find myself in a similar place. I am now back into full motion with my life, but grief, and all that I’m still navigating has exhausted me. I’m burnt out from all the things that come with being an adult – working full time, running a business part time, being married, having 5 (fur) children, being an active part of my community, being a sister, a friend, a granddaughter, and so much more. Then, on top of all of that, I’m also grieving the deaths of my mother and my friend. It feels like an unbearable weight to hold, and now I see and understand, it is and unbearable weight to hold.

But, because I have to always include a but, I truly know, without a shadow of a doubt, this is where I’m meant to be. Why? I don’t know. How? Also don’t know, but trust me, its working itself out. Progression is messy sometimes, and in my case, all the time. I never took a straight path no where (Shout out to power.) I have always found myself on the path littered with bullshit, but I still got to where I needed to be, mostly unscathed. In this heaviness and bogged down time, I know a path forward will appear, because of a mantra I believe in so deeply;

If I do the work, things will work out for me.

I’m doing it. right here, as I type, where I seat, I’m doing the work. I am holding two opposing things so deeply inside of me and close to my heart, and I’m forging a path forward where I can continue to do so. IT makes little to no sense most days, but it always finds its way to perfect understanding. As long as I keep holding space within myself for multiple things to be true, and for all things to be honored, the path will be lined for me to walk, when it is ready, as long as I stay ready.

I’m grieving, and burnt out, and exhausted,

but I’m on my path, and am most aligned, and exactly where I need to be,

and, I will rest, and do my hearts work in my own timing, and in my own way.

This is the duality I needed to ground myself back into the now. With a some of the past, and some foresight into the future.

Everything is everything, and I’m happy in just knowing that.

Before I go, here is a song that sums up this feeling that is messy, and confusing, but strong, and so fucking real – Stay Ready (What A Life) - Jhené Aiko, Kendrick Lamar, and yes, I will reference, link, and talk about several more Jhené songs before it’s all said and done. Get used to it.

We have finally arrived at interview one. I thought it was only fitting to start off with someone who really knows me, could bring a level of comfort to this conversation, and ground us in to this series.

A’Sharee Brown is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who hails from Southern California. She has worked in several organizations with a primary focus on helping and intervening with youth. A’Sharee is also the founder of A Radical Change, a nonprofit organization that aims to provide wrap-around services for youth and families from marginalized backgrounds. She also knows loss in an intimate way, and has had to navigate it for a lifetime.

This interview felt really good. We spoke on poignant topics, got teary eyed, and ended with big belly laughs. So, dive into a conversation with A’Sharee Brown, LMFT, Founder of ARC, and my cousin.

Maud Farquhar: “How often do you talk about death?”

A’Sharee Brown: “Not enough. I don't think that we talk about death and dying as frequently as we should.”

This surprised me, only because it is not the response I was used to getting, personally or professionally. Most people shift in their seats or let out short and curt laughs out of awkwardness, or discomfort. From this point, I knew that myself and A’Sharee were speaking the same language. An unfortunate tongue that many will hear, but few will know.

AB: “For me personally, it comes up, I would say, maybe weekly, but not in a morbid way.”

Morbid. This word comes up so much in my own work.

Maud Farquhar: “A lot of times when I talk about death in that way, too, people say, ‘Oh my gosh, that's so morbid.’”

This word is always the response when death or dying is brought up in any context. However, the definition of morbid, especially when it comes to the context of the conversations I am seeking to have, doesn’t really fit to me.

AB: “Last week, I was having a conversation with someone around how we do these things in the world, and we hope to have this impact, but at the end of the day we die. I was emphasizing well, we all will just die, and people will move on, because that's what you do.”

AB: “Realistically, that's what we want people to do. To acknowledge, feel, and move on, but I think when you say it like that, it can come across like, ‘Oh my gosh, it's scary!”

MF: “I mean, the whole topic is scary.”

I had to chime in and speak to the reality of it all. We don’t all die peacefully in our sleep, so the action of dying can be scary, but does that mean the thoughts and conversation around have to be?

AB: “I definitely do think that it can come across very matter of fact, and not in an empathetic way.” she agreed with my thought, but brought it back around, “but I don't think that way when I hear it. I don't perceive it that way, but I think most people do because they're not talking about it.”

A’sharee’s profession is being a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist, so she knows how to navigate loss and grief in different ways than most people. She also has experienced profound loss in ways that many people can not and will not know. This has shaped not only her career, but also how she views death.

AB: “Growing up as a young black girl, and having experienced death at a really young age when my mom passed when I was nine, there were so many things that were going on in my life at that time. Mainly figuring out who I was going to be without a mother. Evolving into a woman without the proper support, guidance, and mentorship, truly impacted who I evolved into.”

She went on to share how she had people that helped her become who she was, family, friends, and community, but there was still a lack of support she felt she needed.

AB: “I needed a therapist who was black. Who was a woman who could be motherly and help me process all of those things. And so, because I did not have that sort of access, it really inspired me to join this field. I wanted to give back to young black folks, especially teens, who experienced the same things that I did, and were needing support.”

Her work is primarily with Black and brown youth in Oakland. There are times where her personal experiences with death come into play while serving youth, but not as clear cut as one may think.

AB: “The youth that I encounter definitely do experience it, but I also don't think that they have an understanding of grief and loss, or that it's associated with death. It’s like this person died and it's this permanent thing, but, what are the implications of this thing happening? I tell them most couldn't imagine what it would feel like to lose a caregiver.”

MF: “I love that you said caregiver and not just parent because it can often be various people for a child. All still as impactful.” I remembered a conversation A’Sharee and I had stumbled upon a few times, about the differences in losing a parent as a child.

We talked about how starkly different it is to lose a parent at 9 versus 26. Obviously, one is not better or worse, but they come at different times of development, different points of view, and most obviously, the latter doesn’t need someone to step up and care for them. I also wondered the ways a child would internalize or externalize such a profound loss at such a young age. I know that I acted in ways that were, let's just say unbecoming of me, so I was intrigued what her experience was like.

AB: “It's a totally different experience. I'm sitting here laughing because your girl was wilding out.”

MF: “And death can be funny sometimes!”

AB: “It is! I can look back and laugh at my experience as such a young kid. But at the same time I can recognize that that young girl was hurting so much, and was just trying to seek anything that would alleviate that pain. Not having any awareness that I was experiencing pain, I thought that I was just having a blast and having a good time, for the most part.”

MF: “What did that rebellion look like as you grew older?

AB: “For me, it looked like binge drinking in high school, being hyper sexual at some points, and just being really rebellious. I just wanted to, I don't even really know what I wanted to do or what I was trying to express. I think I wanted some autonomy. I just wanted to be me, and feel comfortable being me.”

Autonomy. Grief makes us crave that a lot. So much being out of our own control, being forced to make a lot of decisions in short amounts of time, or not being able to make decisions at all.

MF: “Honestly, I would say that's kind of how I felt as a 26 year old. I felt like a little girl wearing my mothers heels. Having to take care of every single thing because I was my mothers only child. I found myself, especially in the first two years, just feeling like I wanna go against the grain, go against the norm. I also think part of that came from because it's like, ‘oh well, my mom's not here.’ I can no longer be embarrassed. There's nothing I can't do, or anywhere I can't go. There's no one to tell me you can't do this, or to feel ashamed of me. My mom was always that higher power and if she's not here, then I can just wild the fuck out.”

AB: “I don't think I ever put two and two together, but that's definitely very valid. Also being older I could imagine the financial implications, and having to navigate that.”

MF: “That by far has been the absolute worst part of it all. I never really thought about any of this. At 26, no one is talking to me about life insurance. The costs were astronomical, and nobody cared that I needed help. Just to have a funeral, there were so many barriers. The funeral home gave their condolences, then immediately told me I needed to give them a check for $26,000, just for the service. To bury her, another 5 thousand. You want a hearse to take her from the church to the graveyard? Another 5 thousand. It was so, so freaking sick.”

These numbers are exaggerated, but not by a lot, at all.

MF: “I think that is the biggest thing that I've noticed is the difference between losing a parent young and losing a parent when you're a little bit older. I had to call so many people and businesses, like PG&E, and tell them, ‘Hello, my mom just died and I need to close out her account.’ Just to hear the sorriest excuse of a condolences you ever did hear, and then for them to say the remaining balance amount, and that they would bill that directly to me. This is why I say capitalism doesn’t care that your mama died.”

Being an adult and people expecting you to know so many unknowns, is not only stressful, but it makes you realize how insignificant the world and powers at be want us to feel, even when we are grieving.

MF: “I can see that showing up in different ways as a kid as well too, of feeling like, burdensome. Is that something that you experienced or felt growing up?”

AB: “Absolutely, absolutely. I think that my mom passing at such a young age definitely has led to me being a hyper independent woman, because I didn't have anybody like that. Again, I don't wanna discount the people and the community and village that raised me, but I didn't feel like I had a singular person that I could go to and ask a question, or ask for support. My whole life has just been figuring it out.”

AB: “From making a choice, and sometimes making a poor choice multiple times, until I learned that lesson. I mean, I'm grateful for the life that I live, but I definitely do think that as a child, I became very parentified because I was this mini adult at 10 or 11 years old. Now I'm washing clothes, now I'm cooking, now I'm cleaning. I think those are skills that my mom probably would have taught me, but being taught a skill versus having, like, ownership and responsibility to complete that skill, I think is completely different.”

MF: “One thing that I learned from my mom is that parents are supposed to hit their heads to show you what happens if you hit your head, and to prevent you from doing so. I can imagine having to learn those things yourself, like literally everything, could be very tricky to navigate.”

AB: “Everything. Not being told what to do or not to do, but also not being able to watch. I think the pieces that I did observe from my mom are very important, and I'm very connected to them. Like, how a woman should present themselves, the things that a woman should have, I was able to witness those things. She didn't necessarily talk to me about those things because it just wasn't age appropriate, but being able to see how I should carry myself as a woman, I'm very grateful to have learned that lesson.”

MF: “You talked about your hyper independence being a byproduct of your grief, is there anything else that has been unexpected that has shown up?”

AB: “The first thing that comes to mind is this strong desire to be loved. As I've continued to do my own healing work in therapy, it has brought about some awareness to this deep desire to be loved by men. Also by people and by friends, but I would say particularly intimately. Which is shocking to me, because they don't necessarily correlate. Not directly. It's not a direct line between these things, but it's definitely a byproduct from experiencing this significant loss. Now I want to feel loved to fill this void.”

MF: “I know so many people who found themselves in shitty relationships after profound loss. Especially women.”

AB: “It definitely makes sense. The first thing that comes to mind is that healthy love is hard to find and hard to have. It takes a lot of commitment and work within yourself and another person, at least to cultivate healthy love. So I think these unhealthy relationships that we're grasping at after experiencing such profound loss , is us saying we’ll take anything.”

So many people I’ve spoken to about the impact of grief, always point to how their relationships have shifted the most. In the grief circles I joined, and even some people I know personally, found themselves in hurried relationships. When you feel destabilized and have lost someone you love, your family, sometimes the quickest route to rebuilding that is making your own.

MF: “Ok, before we wrap up. I have one last question for you; What is one out of pocket thought you have regarding death?”

AB: “The first thing that come to mind is ‘Niggas die everyday B.’ That’s a phrase that I say frequently. I feel like I’m prepared to die everyday, because I’m aware that I can die any day. Which is why I’m trying to get my shit together.”

We shared a laugh over her choosing this phrase, but both deeply related to the realness of it. Grief makes you view death differently. For us, it has made it less scary, and more of an integral part of living life.

AB: “I'm so eternally grateful for you sharing your experience, although my heart hurts and breaks that you had to learn from experience, and the knowledge you have. You have turned such a tragedy into such a beautiful thing.”

AB: “And now death doesn't have to be something that I just think about by myself, because a majority of my friends and people in my life haven't experienced death the way in which I've experienced it. It can be hard to relate to people and share, but it also doesn’t have to be that deep. We can just talk about it.”

Although there is so much more I could share from this interview, this is where we will end.

Now, a note from Maud Farquhar –

I want to thank A’Sharee Brown immensely for sitting down with me and being so vulnerable. It is not always easy to talk so candidly about death, especially when you have experienced profound loss, but that is the true purpose of ‘on death, and life, and death.’ To take those scary and uncomfortable feelings, crack them open through conversations, and leaving feeling a bit lighter.

If you’d like to keep up with A’Sharee and learn more about her non-profit, A Radical Change, follow their instagram. They also have an amazing event called Art Madness happening this Saturday, 3/22, in Oakland, CA. Stay tuned for all the wonderful things she has in store.

The thought of it now, still pisses me off. How dare the world not sit and break down in grief that my mother is no longer living? How dare my friends continue to be happy, and go out, and fall in love, and get jobs, and buy houses when I was frozen in a pain so rich, it coated my mouth each night and each morning. How dare my family slowly stop calling, stop dropping by, stop checking in. How dare thoughts of my mother be reserved only for her birthday and her death day. How dare she be minimized to two small moments, when I haven’t gone a single day without thinking of her, and being reminded of the meteor sized whole she left in my heart, and in my life.

I used to be pissed off with people committing these actions, these damning slights against me, but it’s truly and deeply not about them, or what they did or didn’t do. I am envious that their life didn’t stop. It feels as though they got 2 extra years I didn’t, because I lived 5 to 10minutes at a time, while they got to experience those years fully. I don’t feel or understand it this way now, but at the time, I felt i had lost so much. That my mothers death, and in some ways, my mother, had robbed me of my time, of my youth. I was 26 years old when she died. I was a full time artist, sharing my craft all around the Bay Area, with a full time job I loved, in a new place with beautiful windows in Oakland, my home town. I was living out dreams I had for years, and you could not tell me there was no higher.

Then my mom got sick. Then she got better. Then she got sicker. Then she died. As quickly as you read that sentence, I experienced it. I blinked twice, and my whole entire life was upside down, and of course I was sad and completely devastated, but I was also mad as fuck. I am a person that thrives on routine, and feeling truly aligned, and I was the polar opposite of those two things, and, unbeknownst to me, I would spend the next 3 years feeling that way. Confused, lost, angry, sad, depressed, and truly pissed off.

3 years, 3 long and honestly terrifying years filled with a grief I could not swallow. 3 years of court dates, police calls, bank visits, arguments, and deep loneliness. 3 years. I laugh about ti now, but I thought I’d be feeling relatively like my self in roughly, 6 months. I have to laugh out loud at the thought that I could have found my footing in 6 months. 6 months after my mother died, I spent most days in bed, or laying on the floor. I was unable to work, write, or even just talk most days. I ventured out into the world when I had to, and to gaslight myself into believing I was getting better, but I wasn’t. I probably got worse the more I thought about what I was experiencing.

I don’t think I smiled a real smile until the second birthday I spent without my mom. My family made their routine calls, and my aunt asked if I was closer to getting my mom a headstone, and I chuckled and said “What’s the rush? She ain’t going no where.” and against the tears and sadness we felt that day, we both bust out laughing. A deep, belly laugh that turned our tears of grief, into something sweeter, tears of true laughter, and a memory of my mother doing the same. That day in July 2023, I finally understood that I could be some form of who I was before, without denying my grief or thinking I had to return to who I was before.

There is no before. Nothing to return to. Nowhere to find again. Yesterday is today, and tomorrow is yesterday. It’s all the same, and that can feel heavy and scary, but it also has been comforting me. Grief has changed my outlook, my understanding, my views on relationship and community, but it has not changed me. It has stretched, expanded, and transformed me, but I am still me. Those things I thought I lost? Still mine. That time that slipped away from me? Is till experienced. That pause that took me away from that dream I felt I was living in? Was truly just a pause. Lately I’ve been able to press play again, and to my initial surprise, all that I dropped back then, was either still there, or has found its way back to me. Just like it was mine the whole time, and not death, depression, nor loneliness, could make it less mine. No need for envy or anger for or towards anyone or thing.

I’m going to end with a phrase that I actually hate, but only because of it’s simplicity (and who said it). It’s something that has withstood so many dark emotions, and lies I’ve told myself. It has rang true even when it felt like it shouldn’t be. And it’s one of the realist things J. Cole ever said, and something I hope is or becomes true for you – 

No such thing as a life that's better than yours
No such thing as a life that's better than yours (Love yours)
No such thing as a life that's better than yours
No such thing, no such thing

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‘You don’t get to die until you get it right, you said. I envy the dead.’

– Jukai, Jhené Aiko

The comfort that line brought me the first time I heard it after my mother died, is so ingrained with my own healing, in a way I didn't think a random song could be. It was 3 or 4 weeks after her passing. Soft, and sweet, and coaxing out the emotion that I felt I had to bury until the right moment. I started with just a few tears, then soon I was full blow bawling on a random side street in West Oakland, so much so that a worker from the funeral home saw me, and came and offered me tissues. I sat there for over an hour just replying that song over and over. It was, all at once, about me, my mom, her death, my desire to exit this world hoping that this pain didn’t exist elsewhere. That maybe I could find myself to a reality where this all made sense, where sound and true reasoning could explain away my pain.

I wanted comfort, and a feeling of absolutism that my mother didn’t die in vain. She couldn’t have. I wanted to find a reason that felt real, because the ones given to me by way of religion, fell as quickly as they landed. “God needed her more than us.” Wait, more than me? Our almighty, all seeing, righteous entity, needed my mother more than 26 year old me? “It was her time.” How could that have been true? Literally, logistically, I wanted someone to explain to me how a 46 year old woman could be healthy in May, and dead by September? How could something I didn’t even know existed two years prior, cyclone its way through my mother, and through my own understanding, quicker than I could muster up a ‘why’?

"You don’t get to die until you get it right…” I think about this lyric all the time, and at the time, I needed so badly for this to be a message to me about my mother. Some kind of sign that she was actually ok wherever she was now. That she had served her time here, and that’s the only reason she got to die. That in 46 years, she did it all and said it all, and so now she got to pass away peaceful and enjoy a restful next lifetime, and I wish, I mean I really fucking wish, I still could believe that.

“Ain’t it crazy, that one of the few things that all humans, and all humanity have in common, is still so taboo?” I shook my head in the common confusion that came right after that clearly rhetorical question. I rarely got to speak about my mothers death like this with anyone. Even my husband, who allows me to grab his hand and wander off into the crevices of my mind often, has his limits. Myself, however, could talk about death day in and day out, but I always stopped short of allowing myself to let the conversation be had in my poetry or writing. That felt too personal. Death is familiar to me, but I fought against it knowing me even more intimately than I felt it tried to. We could talk, we could pontificate, but could we, create together?

“Back to your logo though…” his voice trailed off, but his thought caught up to mine, “it’s the bouquet. It’s not working. I want it to do something I just can’t make it do, and its coming off way sillier than I want.”My original design mimicked a headstone with a bouquet of flowers lying in front of it, but in a geometric way. In my design work, I often include pure shapes, sharp lines, and easily recognizable figures, and I was attempting to apply that to this, but it wasn’t working. It was too literal, in an honestly, very corny way. We get it, this is about death. Heavy, dark, spooky, but it doesn’t mean it has to be so heavy handed.

I don’t want there to be any confusion on what brings us here.

Death. Painful, brutal, irreparable trauma that I now and forever carry with me. That’s what brought me here. That’s what brings you here, but this doesn’t mean that’s all that is here. To me, the difference between the death of an idea, or of a future, holds a similar pain, but no sweetness. It holds no memories. No smiles, or laughs, or moments that made us feel held and protected. It is heavy, yet still hollow. So often empty words of comfort have a better chance at growing in us. “It just wasn’t for you,” can snap us back in a way it just can’t when our people are the ones we are losing. You could never tell my mother wasn't for me, she was me.

Death of people and what was felt, learned, understood, is the sweetness we transmute into grief. Those lights still work, even if only on occasion, to line pathways to healing. The future is often our only way to pull out of the dark that is now, and when the future is dark, from being buried, it’s easy to lose your way on where to bury our grief. Where is there still space for me? How can this grief bloom? Where is there still good soil? Just like with planting seeds that you want to bear fruit, the only way to know if the soil is rich, and moist is by placing your hands inside the earth, and feeling your way through it.

Jukai wasn’t about or for my mother, it was for me. It was my seeking, my living, that brought me to that song, and just like I found it in a time I was seeking comfort, I found it again when I needed something that could plant me into my existence. I needed something from my ‘before’ that could carry me through this dark ‘during’ period.

And that’s the beauty in Jukai. The fact that there can be beauty in a song about death and attempted suicide my shock, or even alarm some, but what we pull out of death can still be beautiful. Yes, it can. Sometimes you have to dig deep, often much deeper than you want to or feel you can, but I rest on my knowing that it is there. I know people who have found it, and here, in these words, is my search for it.

What is that I see?

Starin' back at me

Okay now

I'm okay now

Alive, alive

Made it out alive

My mother died, but I didn’t. I wanted to die, but I didn’t. What did die, was my understanding. Why? Why did it happen? Why did it happen this way? Why did it happen now? Why can’t I die? Wouldn’t it be easier? Couldn’t it be easier? I still haven’t gotten my answers. I no longer want most of those answers. Death is. Death does. It will happen to all of us. It knows all of us. Some more intimately than others, but we’ve all shook hands and broken bread with it. “I’ll see you later,” it said to all of us. In every memory, picture, book, movie, story of what was, there it is. Sometimes, big and towering, and other times it’s so small and refuses to take up space, but it is there, and right here, and everywhere.

I want ODALAD to be where death can take up space. Where death can sit right next to me and not be hurried out the room. “You again?” I say to death, and then I proceed to sit steady and still do great things. Still be a person. Still live. Still grow. Still enjoy, be, and work to get it right.

Made it out alive

Made it out alive

Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise

I’m out alive.

Now, a note from Maud Farquhar –

Thank you for reading the first essay of on death, life, and death. This work is deeply personal to me, and albeit a bit taboo, there is still such beauty in talking about what we have endured. There will be a slew of personal essays such as this, but there will also be some incredible interviews with death doulas, therapist, writers, artist, and folks who have also experienced profound loss. My ultimate hope is to build a community where folks can have a soft spot to land, but also, a place to find resources about the parts of death the living have to navigate – probate court, wills, end of life care, therapy, and all around things that support healing. In the next coming weeks, there will also be a subscription option to receive a physical newsletter via mail quarterly, for those of us still figuring out how to exist on the internet. My mission is to keep ODALAD as accessible, informative, and honest as humanly possible. So, I invite you to subscribe, at either a free or paid tier, and hopefully you stay awhile 🤍.

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