S.L.A.G.S. - In Memoriam

Stephanie Louise Agnes Green Swilling
Originally uploaded by blkarkitect

Stephanie Louise Agnes Green Swilling died December 30, 1999 after a too short life of missed opportunities.

Sometimes I think I dont want to ever have children because i dont want them to go through what I went through and continue to go through shevery time I realize my mother is dead. Its like a tiny yet vicious stab wound everytime I remember that she is, in fact, gone and not just visiting family in Alabama.

She was smart and funny, with a quick wit and sharp tongue. She was a ferocious advocate for me and my sister. I remember one day when she went into the drug store and left my sister and I in the car. Some white kids in the car next to us started harrassing us, spitting on the car and throwing things such that we could not keep the windows down, even though it was summer. Well, when my mother found out she left those kids' mother have it. She called the police and forced the mother and the children to write letters of apology. She taught us never to back down in the face of a fight.

Sadly, she did not have that same fight when it came to herself. As she got older, her marriage failed and her health got worse, her depression deepened, although we did not recognize it as such at the time. She died 4 months shy of her 50th birthday, way too young and way to soon for her son and daughter, who both needed her desperately, even though they did not know it at the time.