The end.

 https://www.joinobit.com//obituaries/8644-heavenly-alpha-centauri-windsor-mountbatten-1958_07_22-2026_04_25

27 April 2026.

Mama is gone. I searched for her yesterday, in the all-absorbing white light, this version of heaven I’ve always envisioned. I imagined some part of her would remain here, tokens of her found in bird song and breeze. But at night, as I lay in bed, imagining her essence crossing into eternity, forcing illusory fuchsia optics to decorate the darkness, as much as I tried to envision her in this dream, I could not erase the awareness of a certain absence. 

Mama is gone. She is not here. I cannot feel her anywhere. And all that I’ve believed about the end is different now. In this version, death is final, and pragmatic, and natural.  

Her body is still at the hospital, grafts of skin and eyes and other parts aside from her organs, which are not usable anymore, are being harvested to help someone else. But her spirit—it did not stay here a moment longer. And why would it? After the life she experienced, if given the chance to escape it all, why wouldn’t she choose that release, that final freedom?

In bursts of intermittent grief and relief, I wonder what I could have done differently. I would have liked to hold her hand in her final breaths, if she wanted me there. I would have liked to eat fried chicken with her one more time, and maybe my son would be there too, and he would hear her laugh in person, and only know her as that, not the way I knew her, as someone the opposite of laughter. I grieve the person and the dream. 

I’m arranging her disposition alone. My sister wants no part of it. She has built a fortress of boundaries around her that hardly anyone can penetrate. And my Dad has yet to learn of his ex-wife’s passing. Likely, the reality will frighten him, will shake the ideas he has about his own vitality and mortality. But when I receive the ashes and am holding Mama’s remains, I wonder if I will still feel this absence. Will a hint of her spirit still be there, one I can usher into the great mysteriousness, or will it just be a vessel filled with the dust of bone?

Hamnet

Directed, Edited, Co-written, and Co-produced by Chloé Zhao
Adapted from the novel by Maggie O’Farrell
Starring Jessie Buckley and Jacobi Jupe

*

Existence. Mother. The natural world. Sacrifices made for Love. How differently grief is experienced. The inevitable suffering and joy of the human condition. The dichotomy of life. To dream, to be, to live, to create, to hurt, to heal, to die, to be reborn, to live again... 

At its heart, Hamnet is a deeply emotive exploration of the enduring question: to be or not to be.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to
[…] 
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

The Perfect Neighbor

Rest in Peace Ajike "AJ" Shantrell Owens

A novel form of documentary filmmaking. “The tragedy plays like a grim miniature of American life, shaped by fear, suspicion, and easy access to violence.” Jessica Winter, The New Yorker 

The Alabama Solution

Directed by Andrew Jarecki & Charlotte Kaufman
Featuring: Raoul Poole, Robert Earl Council, Melvin Ray, Sandy Ray...

The prison system in Alabama functions as a prison industrial complex, using taxpayer money to build and maintain a network of facilities that perpetuate involuntary labor, inhumane conditions, and systemic abuse. Parole denials and punitive retaliation ensure continued exploitation, while deaths and violence occur with minimal oversight. This system fosters black-market economies within prisons, contributes to the ongoing drug crisis, and continues to expand beyond state lines with the rapid expansion of ICE. Its corruption is rooted in entrenched racism and prioritizing profit and institutional growth over human life, safety, and rehabilitation.

The Apprentice

A portrait of moral erosion that extends beyond individual corruption into the system itself, showing how the relentless pursuit of power can ultimately dismantle the foundations of democracy. A horror story that reflects the American tragedy unfolding before our eyes.

Weapons

 written & directed by Zach Cregger

A classroom absent of students. How haunting an intrusion can be. In its allegory, the film carries real-world weight, invoking the terror of destructive forces invading spaces meant to be safe. It's a wild ride and a cautionary meditation on guarding our children and our homes, both physically and spiritually.