For Uncle Richie

Richie: From the Heart (1963-2026)

I wrote this several nights into mourning.

Not after. Not in the quiet that comes when grief has settled into something more manageable. But in the middle of it — while my mother, his two sisters, and his partner were at Hospice House of Hope in Texarkana, Texas, holding their brother's hand, rubbing on his head, and showering him in love. While I was awake in the dark of my computer screen, writing, rocking, bracing.

That's what grief does sometimes.

It doesn't wait. It finds the words before you're ready. It writes toward the love that's still living, even as it prepares for the loss.

These words came out of that place. Real time. Raw time.

And so, I offer them the same way they arrived: not polished, not distant, but present. Still warm from the making.

𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘜𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘙𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘦. Written while he was still here — wrapped in love in the finite, and held forever in infinity.

—

Uncle Rich gave me music before I had words for who I was becoming.

I was a young boy in Biggers-Reyno, Arkansas — two tiny turns on a map, stretched together by a narrow road like the hyphen between them — reaching toward something I couldn't yet name. Something bigger than the borders of what I could see. Something more expansive than the world immediately around me.

He didn't explain it. He just pressed play and the rest was magic.

And out came a man in braids and paint and borrowed genders, singing directly into the marrow of something I didn't yet know I had.

Boy George — who was every color and no single color, who refused to be one thing when he was clearly everything, who stood in the in-between and made it look not like exile but like home — arrived in my life through a cassette tape, in a car, on a dusty road in small town, rural Northeast Arkansas.

And nothing was small after that.

𝘒𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘢 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘰𝘯 taught me that identity could move. Could shift. Could survive its own changes and still come back to something true. That you didn't have to be fixed to be real.

𝘋𝘰 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘞𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘏𝘶𝘳𝘵 𝘔𝘦 asked the question I was too young to ask myself — and somehow made vulnerability sound like dignity. Like a person could stand in the open, unprotected, and that standing could be its own kind of strength.

𝘊𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘰𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘥 said the sacred and the dangerous could live in the same sentence. That devotion doesn't always look like what you expect. That love — real love — is complicated and consuming and worth singing about anyway.

𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 said the clock of the heart doesn't run on logic. It runs on longing. On the ache between moments. On the way some people stay in you long after the moment ends.

He gave me all of that — in cassette tapes, in car rides, in the easy way he shared what he loved without making it a lesson.

Long before I understood identity, or language, or even myself — he handed me a band named after the thing I would spend my whole life building toward.

A 𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘣.

A place where the ones who didn't fit the other places could find each other and belong.

He was already living that. In rural, Northeast Arkansas, no less.

He lived in-between things and made it look natural. He loved what he loved without apology. He moved through the world with a kind of color that didn't need permission, but still within the lines others drew around him, softening the truths he lived.

And somewhere in the DNA of everything I've built — every framework about belonging, every stage I've stood on, every person I've tried to help find their way into themselves — is a cassette tape. Is a car ride. Is a boy in Arkansas hearing for the first time that the in-between is not a mistake no matter the lines drawn to color outside of or the states that colored you.

That's him.

There are people who shape you loudly.

And then there are people who do it quietly — through presence, through moments, through something as simple and as profound as sharing a song at exactly the right time.

He was that kind.

The kind who said love you, miss you, praying for you — and meant it every time.

And that kind of impact doesn't end.

It lives in what we carry forward. In what we become because of them. In the music that will always — always — be his.

So when I hear those songs now —
it's not nostalgia.

It's karma. It's color. It's the clock of a heart that keeps time in its own way.

It's him.

And it always will be.

—

𝘔𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰.

𝘏𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘮 𝘚𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘺.

𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯 — 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘧𝘢𝘯𝘧𝘢𝘳𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘺. 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺. 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴.

𝘏𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘥.

𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘜𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘙𝘪𝘤𝘩.

𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘵.
𝘐𝘕 𝘈𝘓𝘓 𝘊𝘈𝘗𝘚.

—

In his memory and the music he shared across decades, here is a playlist I put together called 𝗥𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲: 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁.

If anyone has any songs they wish to add, simply let me know and happy to add to the list.

Music was medicine and magic to him and forever moved and grateful he shared it with all of us.

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 (𝗙𝘂𝗹𝗹): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLufMGfFpDSFQ0ELMdf5V6-WK5YQltbDzm&si=j2yu0t3KwOWMROPD

𝗧𝘂𝗻𝗲𝗠𝘆𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁: https://www.tunemymusic.com/share/L1XhcGYYBr