Rest in peace, dear Mother.

At the risk of sounding cliche, I feel as if I've lost a great friend today.

Dr. Maya Angelou--Mother Maya, as I often called her in Facebook posts--was fully human. I say that only because I tend to idolize writers, particularly black women writers. Lucille Clifton and Audre Lorde are just below the Virgin Mary in my cosmology of influence. Their work is lofty--filled with theory and psychology, religion and philosophy. Maya, on the other hand, has always seemed approachable to me, sort of like a grandmother. Maya's writing is no less powerful or profound than the writing of Lucille Clifton or Audre Lorde, but it is so much more accessible.

As with most celebrities with a social media presence, I wonder whether or not it was actually Maya posting quite often on Facebook. Actual Maya or not, I looked forward to her status updates. She did not post about her lunch or share photos of cats. She wrote what she might very well speak to somebody in person. And not just to anybody. She did not write to students or devotees, although all who "liked" her page were surely both students and devotees of the Uncaged Bird. No, dear Mother Maya wrote to friends, to beloveds, to her own flesh-and-blood. For that, I'm sure, is how she viewed the world--an extended family with quibbles here and there, but with the extreme capacity to love.

Rest in peace, dear Mother, and rise in glory.