Rita and I met sometime in 1997 when she called me with an idea for a radio program. I was then in public radio and employed by U of L. She worked in human resource management at the university. We met for lunch at the Speed Museum café. Rita had learned of some small communities in the Lexington area known as the black hamlets, and excitedly shared their story. I agreed it was a great topic. We went on to produce a radio documentary that won that category in the Kentucky AP Awards in 1998.
It was on long drives around Lexington, as we searched for and discovered these hamlets, as we interviewed residents, as we stopped for picnic lunches, that I got to known Rita. I learned she grew up in poverty, a sharecropper’s daughter in a small, segregated South Carolina community. The only way her family could buy its way out of that punishing system was for her mother, a talented seamstress, to travel to New York City for several winters and hire out to earn extra money. The only possession Rita had of her mother’s was a hat with a veil. Rita shared stories about life after she left South Carolina, now married to a military man. What it was like to live in Morocco with six kids as her husband, Albert, served in the military. What travelling to China meant to her. In these ways and so many more, she made her way in the world far beyond what her beginnings might have suggested.
Rita was the first person who suggested that I branch out from journalism and try fiction. She encouraged so many women to write and explore their creativity. When two of her plays were produced at Actors Theatre and sold out the house, none of us was surprised. After one play, she took the stage to answer questions from the audience. She was resplendent in red, purple and gold, and lit up the stage with her lilting voice and charisma.
Rita valued her family, her friendships, education, civil rights, feminism, history and creativity.
Our friendship lasted all these years. I spoke to her just ten days ago. She said goodbye the exact same way she always had. I want to tell you how she said these three letters because it says much about her, I think.
“Bye, Rita,” I said.
“Bye,” she replied, with the same-as-always tone of happiness that we had talked, with the same hope it would happen again soon. But more than anything, her “bye” was always said in a somewhat girlish voice, a whimsical wish, I always thought, that the distance between the two of you could somehow evaporate.
I loved the way she did friendship. She was always so curious about what I was doing. She was just as interested in sitting down for an intimate conversation over coffee as she was in traveling to some faraway locale.
I feel so many things right now. I was incredibly blessed to know her. I hate that she’s gone. I miss her so much. I will think about her for the rest of my life.
