Dear Fantasia Fair,
Like the comet that swings close to the sun daring itself to cruise close, but not too close, and come out the other side to a journey back to the stars, so, too, have I just come through another very dangerously trying health crisis. I have been very ill since the end of October—right around the time of FanFair. Not COVID or someone else would be writing to you, but a new and challenging complication of my disability. I’ve been able to work (barely) and to do day-to-day things, but little else. I have a wonderful rotating group of people who take care of me when things get this tough, and I feel very blessed.
However, being so ill leaves a wreckage of unfinished and undone tasks in its wake, I am sad to say. I’ve also been shepherding a dear long-standing friend through her end days, she passed on Thursday night. Now I am grieving, though her passing was expected. Never easy.
All that aside, I want to thank each of you for your hard work and contributions toward making my award reception a lovely and meaningful time. Thank you! I am so grateful that you all chose to recognize me and more importantly the work I have done through decades passed to lift up the lives and spirits of transgender people. It is humbling and incredibly rewarding work to witness folks becoming themselves and blossoming in all the ways they do—and to do the hard political work of making a civil rights foundation for those coming behind us. Thank you for honoring that. Though my work now takes me into the office to make change one person at a time, the work Pioneer Award recognized was hard wrought and has been over the years its own reward.
Thank you so much, and please forgive my tardiness, but life, once again, intervened in my well-intentioned plans, and things had to be put aside while I received medical care.
May you all have—maybe some of you already had—beautiful year’s end Holidays! Celebrating all the ways people of all faiths and practices celebrate the returning of the Light is one of my favorite celebration seasons of the year.
May your New Year be filled with Peace, Love, Prosperity, and above all Blessings!
Peace,
Rev. Hawk Stone
Swami Paramananda
