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Who was Maya Buseman-Williams?

I am reprinting this from an old blog I used to keep...I wanted to share it because sometimes I still miss my friend a lot.

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12/14/2003

lol @ the title of this entry. it reminds me of the Teen Titans series "Who is Donna Troy?"....in a way, Maya was my superhero. i'm going to tell you about her as best I can, cuz i think at least a small piece of her story should be told.

well, i guess it's not her whole story, but i'll share the parts that apply to me.

i FIRST FIRST met maya when i was a freshman and she was a sophomore. all i knew about her was that she was into photography. i organized a trip to the howard homecoming step show, and i remember delivering her tickets to her. she was quiet....not especially friendly, but not mean, either.

she lived in the sophomore apartments with three girls i was cool with. as a matter of fact, i was cool with everyone in that apartment through to their graduation. anyway....i remember that maya didn't get along with the girls for whatever reason.

maya went abroad to senegal for her entire junior year, and i got close with her former roommates.

my junior year, i shared a house with THIS GUY:

we will call him THE GOLDEN CHILD....he wouldn't mind me posting his picture, he's an aspiring model/actor/bunch of other things. my Junior year was he and Maya's senior year. i didn't know him very well yet, but i knew that he loved him some Maya. in a platonic way, mostly, but i could tell that maybe if he felt he had a chance....ah, well never mind.

THE GOLDEN CHILD spent a lot of time with Maya in her single dorm room on East Campus. when i say they were cooler than cool, i really mean it....they were like best friends in college. it means a lot to me when people can platonically spend so much time together.

my first memory of the "real" maya was when she, the golden child, and amerie

all went to the club one night. maya was very close with amerie (yes, the singer) while we were all in college. (me and amerie were also close, and i knew that she was cool with maya, but it was a different kind of cool than maya and the golden child.)

so, i was at the top of the stairs of the house that me and the golden child lived in, and i saw maya at the door, dressed for the club. she was so classy....i think she was even wearing a dress....not FMP's or a short shirt. (fuck me pants)

i was like WOW. she is beautiful. i can see why the golden child likes her so much. and amerie looked just as beautiful, but the way. can you imagine these three beautiful people just hanging out together?

later, maya came back to the house when we had programs. one i have pictures for was a welcome back meeting for those who had traveled abroad to africa:

not the greatest pics cuz she was in the background.

anyway, i got to know maya well because of her close relationship with amerie and the golden child. but then, i got to knew her independent of them.

wow....i just remembered something. i wrote a play the same year that i met maya, and by the time she came into my life, i was trying to put together a "staged reading" or really, just a read-through of the play to see how long it ran. the only people that showed up were maya and amerie. they were so helpful...wow. totally forgot. i mean, they are in the acknowledgements of the novel (which evolved from the play) but still. i just had such a vivid memory of sitting in our living room and reading through the first act of that play....

that is a typical picture of maya.....just chillin in our house.

she was just so fucking cool. she was cool with most of my friends: nappy rocky, paz, lady c. paz used to call her "african guinea girl." i actually don't know why, other than the fact that she studied abroad.

lady c was the co-director of a fashion show during our junior year, again, during maya's senior year. maya was one of the co-leads in this show, and basically represented "good" in a battle between good and evil, love and lust, etc, etc. here is a pic in the "white scene":

quite angelic....i know that maya really enjoyed doing the show. it wasn't something that she would normally do at alma mater, but then again, she would try damn near anything once. the golden child was also in this show, and i helped lady c with some of the music.

maya graduated soon after the fashion show, with a degree in Culture and Politics (i think) and a certificate in African Studies.

the golden child had a kid before the next time i saw maya. maya had gone off to new york to do teach for america, which she also was a recruiter for. i am pretty sure that maya had not met justin's kid before these next photos, but i am really not sure. here is maya with the golden child, jr. (sorry for the little scratch):

and here is a picture of maya just being maya....looking out the window. okay, i think we actually posed this picture, but let's pretend that we didn't, 'k?

so yeah, maya came to town to see the golden child's son and catch up with other folks who loved her....me, and a bunch of underclassmen under me. wow, i am really realizing how close many in the class of 2003 were to her, mostly because they heavily populated the fashion show.

maya is the only woman that i have shared a bed with...those teeny, tiny twin extra long beds you find in college. (those were some really uncomfy beds, btw). i remember offering to take the floor, and she just said "why?" i did wake up early in the morning and took the floor, just so i could spread out. but the girl was so small...it really was possible to share a slim bed with her and not even feel like she was there.

later, after i graduated, maya came back to dc a few times, two that i can remember specifically. we also talked on the phone and emailed semi-regularly. it wasn't that i didn't have time for her, i just wasn't in the habit of keeping in contact, especially after we had both left alma mater. but, i just knew she was okay, and that i would see her again.

i think i remember the last time that i spoke to her. she was in dc, recruiting for teach for america at alma mater. i was supposed to trek out there to see her, but i was just tired and not feeling well. i was either catching a cold or getting over one. i very well could have gone to see her, but for whatever reason, it didn't happen.

then, this summer:

Maya Buseman-Williams, 25, of Collegeville, was killed during a crash at 5:15 a.m. on Interstate 80 in Montour County.

According to police, _____ ______, 24, of Hanover Park, Ill., the driver of a 2002 Ford Explorer that was traveling west, lost control of the vehicle, which rolled several times.

Buseman-Williams was pronounced dead at the scene by Montour County Coroner Scott Lynn. _____ was transported to Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, for minor injuries.

and just like that, her life was over.

i'm not going to go into great detail about how i miss her. we all do. the shit is hard. for me, i do get used to it a little more each day.

i haven't brought myself to delete her name from my Outlook address book.

Maya was like....life. she did everything that i couldn't....she lived life her way. when she died, she was on her way to chicago to start a new life, having ended her term with teach for america.

you can't be mad at god for taking her when her life was so fulfilled. you can only be sad that you won't get to see her again any time soon.

but i know that she is here. i really do feel her sometimes. not externally, but internally.

i think she wants to beat j-pan's ass, too. she was there for me the first times that he hurt me. gosh....the tears are seriously welling up in my eyes now. she was just there for me so much, in ways that i am only now fully appreciating.

i still love you maya....thanks for looking out for me.

********

The only update I have is that I still miss her like crazy and my eyes well up with tears just thinking about her. I want her to be here so I could share my life with her. I wanted her to live to see my novel become a reality. Damn, I'd give anything to see her face again.

It's not easy....it never gets easier....it only gets further away.

I love you, Maya. I miss you. Hold a space for me up there.

Posted by Rashid on November 23, 2004 8:16 PM

Comments

Commented by gabrielle on January 13, 2005 11:34 AM

Commented by Suad on February 14, 2005 7:37 AM

Commented by Ken W. on May 24, 2005 10:31 PM

Commented by Dorrie on July 26, 2005 7:13 PM

Commented by Brian Walker on April 8, 2006 8:01 PM

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