A Walk Through a Cemetery: Would I Want to Be Laid to Rest Here?

Remembering Alexey Navalny

The news of Navalny’s death has been devastating and shocking. Even though, sadly, not entirely unexpected.

A part of me was as hopeful as Navalny, thinking he would survive and that Russia would see a better future in my lifetime.

There was also a part of me that thought he was insanely naive returning to Russia in 2021 after he had been treated in Germany for Novichok poisoning. That part of me was convinced that Russia would never get out of her own way. She has been doomed for centuries.

That cynical (or realistic?) part of me hated to be right when Alexey was arrested upon his plane’s landing in Moscow in January 2021. This part of me also hates to be right again now that he is dead.

Navalny died fighting for the better Russia he saw in his dreams. 

My path has been vastly different. It has been one of painful acceptance that my country of origin is like an abusive, toxic parent, a parent I keep trying to let go of and perhaps, one day, forgive.

I wrote a poem in the fall of 2022  that seems very fitting to share now, in this time of grief.