my little cousin maymay

MayMay was the personification of love itself. A beacon of light & proof that God is within us. like all of us She wasn’t perfect, but the consistency in her energy made her an anchoring weight for her family & anyone who was fortunate enough to have built a bond with her.

Camay as a small child with her mother Shanelle & her baby sister heaven

My little cousin was a simple girl at heart, she loved to laugh & live in the moment. the amount of people she touched & brought light to in this short amount of time she was on this earth is incalculable. Camay had an amazing ability to hone in on whoever she was around. like a true reflection she could hear an idea for the first time and be able to expand a single thought into a whole vision as if she was inside your own head with you. that was something she loved to do, be in your head with you. Maymay didn’t really care what the topic was or whether or not a conversation seemed necessary, if she cared about you she sat with you, took what you said, & ran with it. the best person to have in your corner. as smart as she was, she had the ability to go into almost any field she wanted to and thrive. from cosmetology to stem & computer technology maymay had it all, though her greatest aspiration in my opinion was connecting people. She once told me that if she had it her way, she just wanted to be skilled & smart enough to help her family elevate with whatever we wanted to do. At the time, I tried to convince her to “have a dream of her own” & think about maybe entrepreneurship or a career with coding since she studied computer engineering in college. Her words was “as long as I’m working for one of y’all & helping the family succeed, I’ll be happy.” that was her dream, family. camay was all about family. sunday dinners was her favorite time of the week. she loved when the whole family came together for a delicous meal followed by us picking teams for a super heated song for song “versus” battle, the version she made up. Camay was ahead of her time in so many ways… she saw the importance of family, love, & self sustainability long before she had the words to verbalize it. I watched my baby cousin grow into one of the most intellectual & wisest people I know.

She was less of a cousin & more like another sister to me. It felt like everything happened so fast. From the day she was born she hit the ground running & grew straight up, like a flower. Before anyone knew it she was speaking words, it was a blink of an eye before those words translated into ideas that provoked thought, She was cracking jokes like a twenty year-old by the time she was in elementary school, by the time she was in middle school she was so tuned-in she was even offering some of the adults in our family words of wisdom. then just like that she was Graduating high school, dating, & going out with her friends. my baby cousin had just entered adulthood.

i feel as though her departure means alot more than we might know. camay understood this world better than most people who lived a full lifetime of traveling.

to her family; she is a prodigy, a genius, irreplaceable.

maymay Stopping to take a selfie while reading with her little cousin (my son)

She was a pure heart who sought to give out love & connect with others as much as she could. Which at times lead her into situations that wasn’t best for her. Maymay was a true rider. a teacher. someone to vent to. cry to. someone you can count on to make you smile. and someone you just knew would always remain herself. which was the best part about camay, she didn’t change herself for anybody. Like countless other women in our community, she prioritized people & places where love-lacked & found herself uniting with those individuals. she saw the good in everybody and gave people more chances than they deserved. She was a light nobody could ever dream to replicate, taken out by a cycle of stupidity that has been copied way too many times. This speaks to the mental state of our community. Our women have become desensitized & hardened in the presence of danger just to remain nurturing. our men have become angry to a point of confusion & misalignment as we battle with ourselves & those who seek to benefit from our self destruction. As a whole, we have taken on the role of the dead… idle & in a constant loop of non-production & self sabotage. Regardless of who’s to blame, it is our job to snap out of it. On a national scale & even global scale we must realize we have allowed ourselves to be manipulated towards the contribution of our own demise. It’s time to stop blaming & start acting accordingly. We must heed the messages of the lives of those like my cousin Camay & learn to put family before self, community before self, & God before self. Otherwise we find ourselves at the wrong place in the wrong time. I take my cousins life as a message & a sign that we as a people are at the wrong place in the wrong time. we must get back on track so we are able to better nurture the gifts we recieve like my cousin camay.

the way i see it, my cousin was killed by a former student at dsu by way of gun violence, cowardous, & ignorance. the shooter didn’t intend to hit my cousin, but his carelessness & hopelessness made it so that he probably couldn’t see past his own oblivious tantrum to notice mutliple innocent women were in front of him as he shot through the small crowd to reach his target. but my question is, why do we allow these conditions to exist?

Camay wasn’t just a victim of gun violence. she was a blessing in a world where we justify getting a “lick back” after losing a fight. Before public safety, communication, and common sense. the world in its current condition doesn’t deserve maymay. my little cousin always remained herself & still managed to be what you needed her to be, when you needed her. the amount of lives she has impacted & will continue to impact is a testament to that. we as a community have allowed ourselves to believe “the streets” that we don’t even own, are ours to run. its a cycle we as a people have been in for the past 100 years in america. the generations of youth in our community are ignorant & confused due to the things we have allowed to be normalized. at what point do we stop acting like the truth isn’t in our faces?

MayMay was the personification of love itself. A beacon of light & proof that God is within us. maymay lives in my heart as a symbol of hope, that i always have someone in my corner ready to listen & see a situation through with me. Her spirit lives in all of us, her family. although knowing i wont ever get to spend another moment laughing & joking with my cousin in this lifetime is beyond Gut-wrenching, i find peace knowing she is in a better place, a place designed specifically for her purpose; to guide us, support us, & give us hope.

rest in heaven maymay

Maymay & myself