The horrible holidays are here.

On September 25, 2025, a national day of remembrance for murder victims, there she was, as she has been so many times now, in front of Oakland City Hall, calling for justice and love and attention for survivors.

"His strength, his presence when he came into the room, he lit up the room.”

These days, as the twenty-fifth anniversary of Khadafy's death approaches, her mission has expanded.

Recently, I asked Marilyn what she would say to her son’s killer if she could talk to him.

"But Justice doesn't stop by everybody's house..."

In the electric cloud of grief and pain and power I had witnessed at each service, my sense of my role had undergone a change.

"Marilyn organized what I believe is the chaos.”

Marilyn on KTVU Channel 2

When I think and write about her work and her kindness, I need to remember that no matter how she seems, “it all deeply impacts her.”

The things we keep.

"They can be whoever they are, they can feel however they are, and she’s just gonna be with them."

And so, like in the beginning, at the end, the son is swaddled and alone with his mother.

I remember a very stern-faced and serious KD, his bold, confrontational eyes staring into the eyes of a city...

Think about the last piece of news you read or saw about the killing of a young man in Oakland. What did it tell you about the victim?

Last night at a fundraiser for Youth Alive, held at The Crucible in West Oakland, I was invited to read an excerpt from my work in progress

KWP crisis responders are interrupters of hate, savers of the lives of the living; they prevent retaliation. They deliver love.

She had raised this person who possessed the vision necessary to discover, and deliver a previously unrecognized human right

Her faith was strong, girded and steely, if rarely worn on the sleeve. Tragedy did not diminish it...