"Used her training and intellect to fight like hell for people navigating unjust systems" -PJ P

I first met Vanessa on a volunteer trip to an ICE detention center in rural Georgia, where she was bringing her students for a spring break project.

I had been in love with her daughter Rebecca for years, and we had started seeing each other some months before. I don’t recall what she said to expect of the meeting, but when it happened I quickly understood that Vanessa was the type of person who took things seriously, used her training and intellect to fight like hell for people navigating unjust systems, and — like she would later tell me on multiple occasions — would chemically castrate me if I ever did anything to harm her daughter.

Vanessa has a brilliant way of saying things like that with a perfect balance of sincerity and humor. I have no doubt that the word “fierce” will show up a number of times in the reflections of others, along with some variation of “hilarious.” These terms show up in her straight face, her furrowed brow of skepticism that forces you to question the very ground you’re standing on, and her equally disarming smile. All of this and more shows up in Rebecca, which makes me extraordinarily lucky.

Anyway, we spent some days going into the Folkston detention center, one of many places where the U.S. locks up people forced to flee home. Vanessa had us doing not only the basic volunteer program to try to get people out but also putting in substantial time on the side to meet with a couple of guys whom Rebecca and I knew from a solidarity caravan of people seeking asylum.

I went on to work in this area of legal advocacy, and I’m still grateful for the artful turns of phrase Vanessa showed me as I sat in on and tried to be useful for the asylum consultations she had with the guys. Drawing on her practiced art of storytelling, she helped them understand that to win over these judges, they needed to immerse them into their stories as well. To this day, one of the guys, who lives near Rebecca and me, still chuckles in a sort of exhausted recollection of Vanessa and asks us to send her his greetings.

It warms my heart to think of Vanessa’s subsequent embrace of my daughter, Lucy, as family at the house in Hastings, on cross-country calls, in the exchange of notes and gifts (always something from Vanessa’s archive that widens Lucy’s eyes).

Vanessa’s ardent love for her family and welcoming spirit to others are the kinds of things that make the world feel like a place worth being in. Her dedication to the idea that we should fight for equity and dignity for all reverberates in the efforts of others; the positive chain reactions from there onward are staggering to try to imagine.

After the years of relative isolation due to covid, Vanessa and Steven finally met my parents at the beach last summer. One always wonders how that will go, but of course with no delay she had them in peals of laughter over her quips at the table playing dudo, a game of dice and bluffing.

One afternoon during that beach trip, the waves were intimidatingly tall, and I stood in the sand with my mouth agape as Vanessa strode out into them, unfazed, and then swam breaststroke, floating just above the break, her face poised like it was nothing at all, just a matter of fact.

We love you, Vanessa. Salud.

PJ P