A Decade Long September
The Beginning
For almost a decade, I mourned a man I was deeply in love with. We had been in an on again-off again relationship for almost six years. I remember the first time I met him. I was getting off an elevator with a friend, and he was getting on. Our eyes locked. He smiled widely. He just came home from serving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence.
So, this was the infamous Ramel. He was the older brother of my friend I was on my way to see. As I made my way down the hall, I heard him ask the person he was with, “Yo, who’s that white girl? What’s her name?”
The neighborhood was abuzz anticipating his homecoming. His sister read me letters he wrote to her from prison. Ramel was feared widely, and his street reputation spanned across the five boroughs of New York City. No one ever expected us to become involved with one another.
Cupid’s Chokehold
September 2nd, 2011, fell on a Friday. It was the start of Labor Day weekend. I spent the summer reevaluating the year and the people I allowed into my life. Additionally, I pondered if cutting off my ex-boyfriend, Ramel, was the right thing to do. In April 2011, I told Ramel that having him a part of my life was suffocating. He was involved in criminality, surrounded himself with users, and the overall toxicity was harmful.
I made the heart-wrenching decision to cut him out of my life. Ramel didn’t believe I was serious. After a few weeks, he began calling me and tried passing presents through my sister. I changed my number to make it easier to move on. Outwardly, I looked content with this course of action. Secretly, I cried because I missed him so much.
On the second day of September 2011, I laid on a couch in the living room. I was falling asleep. The last thing I remember before I heard two gunshots was my mother draping a blanket over me. Immediately ran to the window and saw a man clutching his chest. He took a few steps before collapsing. I let out a wail and ran to the front door. I knew it was Ramel. My mother blocked me from leaving. I begged her to move out of the way. She was tearing up as she said, “Chantal, it’s not Ramel. Please, calm down.”
We both knew it was Ramel dying below us. He was shot in the chest at 6:10 pm and was pronounced dead at Bronx Lebanon Hospital.
Love isn’t Death Proof
My sister and I went upstairs to Ramel’s mother’s apartment to provide comfort to his father figure, “Uncle Jeffrey”. He told me when he looked through the peephole, he was so relieved when he saw my sister and me. He hugged us tightly. We were still in shock that Ramel was dead. His mother was at the hospital to identify his body.
To keep our spirits up, we began to tell funny memories of him. This worked for a while until “Uncle Jeffrey” teared up and said, “Baby girl, I know how much my nephew meant to you. You’re the only one in his life who wanted him to make something of himself.”
His statement made me recall a time when one of Ramel’s friends called him because they needed help settling a score. This was so common — so-called friends using Ramel’s feared reputation as battle armor. I was on edge that something bad was going to happen. I begged him not to go. Being loyal to his fair-weather friends always put him at risk. Out of frustration, I grabbed his sneakers and threw them out my bedroom window. He was so angry. He put on my Hello Kitty slippers and went upstairs to his mother‘s apartment to get another pair of sneakers. Living by this code is what cost him his life.
People often wondered what I saw in Ramel. They didn’t see the side of Ramel he kept hidden. A soulful and sensitive person. He had a boyish charm I discovered when my mother once came into my room to kiss us goodnight. He used to watch basketball on television with my brother. He used to playfight with my sister and me. My mother still gets choked up when she mentions how he cooked her grits in the morning before she went to work.
When Ramel’s mother returned from the hospital, a group of us went downstairs to the crime scene that was still taped off. Our alienation was quite visible. There were about ten of us, and in the distance, people watched on. It was almost as if they were relieved that he was dead. I told Ramel many times that people didn’t respect him; they only feared him. Someone apart of the group asked out loud, “Why didn’t he just get on his plane to Miami? Why did he come here?”
Ramel was in the middle of packing for his Labor Day trip to Miami. He received a phone call. Someone was in trouble, and he rushed to their aid. He ultimately was murdered for a situation that had nothing to do with him. Ramel’s best friend was among the group but left to go to Miami without him. His decision angers me to this day. Seeing him tweet a photograph of himself on an airplane while Ramel’s dead body was at the hospital disgusted me.
Cheers to the Freakin’ Weekend
I vividly remember the deafening silence when I returned to my apartment. Ramel and I loved Rihanna. I wanted to feel his presence. I sang along to Rihanna’s Loud album. I threw myself on the floor and sobbed when Cheers (Drink to That) played. I remembered a few weeks prior, I received a call from a restricted number, where the caller said nothing and only played that song. It dawned on me. It was Ramel. He was too afraid to reveal himself to me. I hated myself for cutting him off. Unbeknownst to me until recently, I punished myself for many years for this decision. My self-hatred heightened as I realized that burning all of our photographs and deleting his traces from my social media was foolish. Ramel was gone, and all I have are memories. It’s as if our time together never existed.
I was befuddled when I read The New York Post Blotter’s claim that Ramel was shot in the chest and the head — not the case. I was outraged that it was mentioned he was arrested five times, “including once for murder”. I had a flashback of Ramel having an emotional breakdown. He kept saying he was an animal and the world didn’t see him as human. He had terrible nightmares as well and often feared he was going to hell. To add further disrespect, the management of the apartment complex where he was murdered didn’t wash his blood off the pavement for days. Even in death, society didn’t restore his dignity or basic humanity.
I was traumatized witnessing his murder and navigating grief. People began to act vitriolic towards me. I’m a creative person and wanted to express the pain of Ramel’s death. I began to gather photographs that people were posting of him. I used online photo editing applications to edit the photographs. I saw people post them and thanked me for doing so.
I randomly received a hateful message from a woman who caused trouble in our relationship. I haven’t seen or spoken to her in years. She accused me of stealing photographs of Ramel from her Facebook profile. This wasn’t the case, and I replied by telling her that. I expressed why was she so worried about photographs at a time like this. I immediately blocked her. This opened the floodgates to anonymous messages and restricted calls threatening me to stop talking about Ramel and not to come to the funeral.
Ramel’s mother and certain family members distanced themselves from me. I needed to know where his funeral was going to be held. I wanted to chip in for an outfit for his burial. My Facebook messages and calls were ignored. I had to cold-call funeral homes in The Bronx and Harlem to inquire if his services were going to be there. Thankfully, I found out where his funeral services were going to be by doing this.
I skipped his wake and only stayed at his funeral for twenty minutes. I made my way to his open casket and gasped. He was dressed in a cheap outfit and wore fake Versace glasses. I used to rub his belly when he was alive. I did this while he was in the casket. He felt hollow. I heard a crinkling paper sound. The love of my life, who selflessly sacrificed himself for others, was stuffed like a scarecrow.
I felt unsafe emotionally and physically. I saw a close friend who he viewed as a sister. She tried to reassure me that nothing would happen. She told me over and over that he loved me and wanted me to be there. She held on to my arm tightly, and I broke free. I ran into the middle of the street and flagged down a taxi.
Besides “Uncle Jeffrey” and Ramel’s close friend, the taxi driver was the only one who showed me kindness. He was an African Muslim. He pulled over and took out his prayer beads from his glove compartment. I asked what he was doing. He told me he was helping guide Ramel to Paradise and asking Allah to accept him. I sobbed, and he reached over to comfort me. I was charged nothing for the ride.
Pan’s Labyrinth: The Trauma Edition
The first year of Ramel’s death was excruciating. I had constant flashbacks of seeing him after he was shot and reoccurring nightmares. One nightmare still frightens me to think about. I’m in my apartment, and the doorbell rings. I open the door, and Ramel is standing there — he looks almost zombie-like. The flesh is falling off his face as he asks me, “ Why didn’t you want to talk to me? I needed you.”
Months forged on, and I was able to conduct some daily activities. With trauma, sometimes the mind forgets, but your body doesn’t. I was going to Target near Yankee Stadium with my sister. She said something funny that made me laugh. Suddenly, a car backfired. I had a flashback of hearing the gunshots the day Ramel was murdered. I hyperventilated and began to shake. I couldn’t hear my sister call my name. I did feel her slap me. I snapped out of it. She felt bad that she wasn’t equipped with the knowledge of de-escalating a trauma episode. I was apologizing through my tears as she held me.
I visited “Uncle Jeffrey” from time to time at Ramel’s mother’s apartment. I remember on a bad day, he cried. He told me how much my visits meant to him. They meant a lot to me, too. He was our number one supporter. Our entanglement with relationship saboteurs was a common theme. I was the one “trying to change him” or “stealing him away” from loved ones. Ramel was the breadwinner for multiple people. Criminality is what made his money and also put him in danger. I didn’t care if he didn’t have two pennies to rub together. I wanted him to live.
It took for Ramel to die for some to realize that my involvement in his life kept him safe. This caused a few family members to make statements that implicated that I was partially to blame for his death. If I “tried harder” or “didn’t cut him off”, he would still be here. These were the same people who didn’t want me in his life while he was alive.
This wasn’t the only instance of emotional manipulation. His family planned a cookout for the year anniversary of his death. I didn’t know about it until a close friend told me about receiving an invitation via Facebook. I was hurt that I wasn’t invited. About a week before the cookout date, I received a Facebook message from one of his aunts inviting me. I felt foolish because I thought I rushed to judgment. This was short-lived as I received a Facebook message from his mother asking me to contribute financially to the cookout — which I wasn’t even initially invited to. Needless to say, I didn’t go.
For years, I struggled with the hot and cold nature of how his family treated me. It made grieving and dealing with the severe trauma of witnessing Ramel’s murder unbearable. It deepened my depression and exacerbated my anxiety. This is the first time that I’m openly writing about these experiences. It’s terrifying and liberating at the same time. I feel obligated to stay connected to Ramel’s family members. I’m cordial and acknowledge his family suffered an enormous loss. I created a healthy boundary that shows them respect and protects me.
His two youngest siblings and “Uncle Jeffrey” I adore. They remind me of the good times I had with Ramel. I hope his uncle will find happiness again. His aura is drenched in grief and sadness. Ramel was more of a son to him than a nephew. His little brother overcame the obstacle of losing his older brother at such a young age and completed high school. He told my sister to tell me. He wanted me to be proud of him. I’m so proud of him.
The Emancipation
Ramel’s death catalyzed my political awakening. I’m able to assess his life and murder from a macro/micro level. I’ve read books, attended panel discussions, and became an activist. Race and socio-economics played a role in his murder. Death and grief led the way for me to educate myself and gain a much-needed sociological perspective for my life experiences.
This past year was transformative for me. For almost a decade, my family urged me to seek help. Ramel’s murder certainly wasn’t my first trauma, but it changed the course of my life. I cried about it. I dreamt about it. I had explosive anger about it. I never truly dealt with it or processed it.
Being in trauma-informed therapy is life-changing. Not only do I have a safe space to talk about my trauma, but I’m given a psychological education. It’s explained why my brain is rewired because of trauma. I’ve learned coping mechanisms. I do have days where I feel defeated by trauma, but with a real support system, I get through it. I moved out of the apartment complex where I grew up, met and fell in love with Ramel, and eventually watched his life end. September 2nd, 2021, will be the first anniversary of his death miles away from his murder site, and I will be at peace.
I feel safe talking about Ramel honestly. I needed to tell our story. This was necessary to set me free. I want people to know he existed. His life mattered. Knowing him changed me. I wish he were still here. He wasn’t perfect, and our relationship was hard to deal with, but we did love each other. We shared ourselves completely with one another. I hope Ramel knows I will never forget him. I feel a shift in my life. I grieved his death for almost a decade, and now I’m grieving the reality of letting go.
I love you, Ramel. You’re my close friend and guiding light.
Ramel J. Shepard
November 7th, 1984 — September 2nd, 2011
