👀 Remembering Colleen Thomas-Matlon

On June 22nd we lost Colleen Thomas-Matlon, Jordanna’s mom. As painful as the experience was, I choose to remember it as a series of serendipitous events that go well with her eccentric and complex personality: we were going to visit her at the beginning of a long trip, but because of a passport issue we had to fly a day earlier… it was thanks to that that Jordanna was able to see her before she passed. One after another, friends and family (some of which we haven’t seen in years, or were in town for another reason) lined up to help us along the process. And then, small little gestures started to appear, like the huge rainbow in the sky after my daughter has been asking to see one the day she died, to mention one of many.

Clearing her apartment was very hard, but also gave me a chance to discover more about her. Her collages, her outlandish hats (“how am I going to recognize her when I pick her from the airport?” “Oh, you can’t miss her”), her negrophilia collection (any of my followers know of a museum that may take these?), fun optical devices, sumptuous jewelry, a rifle (!), her Poirot dvds, and countless boxes of photos we still have to go through.

With Muhammad Ali! She had tons of interesting stories.

I’ll miss her resilience, dark humor, creativity, and love for my family. And I’ll be sure my daughters remember her like that too. A true artist.

Thank you for everything, m’am 🖤