A couple of days ago I started revising this “peace” for Tyrone Smith, who joined the ancestors one year ago today, from an Instagram post and tribute from last year, and part of a recent dharma talk, before receiving the news yesterday that the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson joined the ancestors.
I already knew it would be challenging to not lift up Audre Lorde’s 92nd birthday anniversary, which is also Toni Morrison’s 95th birthday anniversary, while honoring a beloved who died one year ago today.
On February 19, 2025, one day after receiving the news of Tyrone’s passing, I cultivated the energy to write an Instagram post and several months later a tribute read by my wife, Sheila Alexander-Reid, at a memorial held at the Church of St. Luke and the Epiphany I was unable to attend, but it’s been too painful to go deeper than that until now.
And now I’m holding the grief of Rev. Jackson, the international human rights activist, and first Presidential candidate I voted for, casting that ballot in 1988, just a year after I became eligible. I’ve quietly mourned the loss of so many within the last year, including Assata Shakur, Roberta Flack, alongside my cousins Kristina D. Palmer, Cole Damari Simmons, and many others. Last year was a beast in terms of seismic losses of individuals who directly and indirectly impacted my life profoundly.
I needed to step back from the social media grid and from my own impulse to write or post every time something devastating or joyful arrives.
This reflection, however, is not about the global stage. It is about someone who loomed large in the lives of many, no less profound for not being internationally known.
This peace is for Tyrone Smith.
At the heart of Theravada Buddhist practice sits a teaching called the Five Remembrances, the Upajjhatthana Sutta in Pali, five unflinching truths we are encouraged to recite every day, not as cause for despair, but as a guide for living honestly. The Buddha invited everyone to turn toward reality rather than away from it, reciting these remembrances as both a reminder that anything can happen at any time and a guide for how to move through each moment.
From the Upajjhatthana Sutta (AN 5:57)1:
“There are these five facts that one should reflect on often, regardless of one’s gender identity2, or whether one is lay or ordained.
1. I am subject to old age; I am not exempt from old age.
2. I am subject to illness; I am not exempt from illness.
3. I am subject to death; I am not exempt from death.
4. I must be parted and separated from everyone and everything dear and agreeable to me.
5. I am the owner of my kamma3, the heir of my kamma; I have kamma as my origin, kamma as my relative, kamma as my resort; I will be the heir of whatever kamma, good or bad, that I do.”
These Recollections carry such depth, both intellectually and experientially speaking.
In their lay accessible form known as the Five Remembrances, as translated by ancestral spirit, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh:
1. I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
2. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.
3. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
5. I inherit the results of my actions of body, speech, and mind. My actions are my continuation.
These remembrances are not neat categories, nor are they an excuse to be resigned, or to bypass harm or any form of injustice. They are braided truths that show up together in every life. Aging includes illness. Illness confronts death. Death is change. All of it reveals what our actions truly mean.
These reflections are not meant to frighten or discourage us. They soften clinging, loosen the grip of craving, and invite us to meet life with tenderness and truth. They do not bypass suffering. They help us meet it honestly, with an undefended heart.
One year ago, Tyrone Smith, my Black gay elder, mentor, and perhaps my most trusted confidant of 35 years, joined the ancestors. I am still very tender with this loss. That tenderness from his loss and the loss of others is part of what brings me back to this teaching again and again. It is what makes these remembrances real rather than abstract.
Tyrone Smith was an award-winning LGBTQ activist, AIDS awareness advocate, community leader, consultant, mentor, and advisor to two Philadelphia mayors. He died on February 18, 2025 at his home in West Philadelphia.4
Tyrone’s life was a profound embodiment of the Fifth Remembrance: “I am the owner of my actions, heir of my actions. Whatever actions I do, good or bad, of these I shall become the heir.”
He understood that legacy is not what we leave behind after death. It is what we build through our actions while we are alive.
For over 40 years, Tyrone moved through Philadelphia’s Black LGBTQ community, building bridges where none existed.
He helped establish Impact in 1984 to address the needs of Black Philadelphians during the AIDS crisis. He co-founded Unity Inc. in 1989 and the Black Gay Men’s Leadership Council in 2005. He also served as a social services advisor to two Philadelphia mayors.5
But these organizational accomplishments do not capture the heart of Tyrone’s practice, which was showing up consistently for people who needed him.
I have known Tyrone Smith since 1990 or 1991, when I was a 21-year-old walking boldly into my unapologetic lesbian identity, rooted in an unwavering commitment to Black feminism. It did not take long for us to forge a deep and lasting bond. Tyrone, nearly 30 years my senior, took me under his wing and became a big brother, a mentor, and one of my most trusted confidantes.
There is hardly a major, or even minor, decision in my life in which Tyrone was not a sought-out and trusted voice of counsel. His wisdom shaped pivotal crossroads in my journey. We co-produced public television and commercial radio programs that centered Black LGBTQ experiences in Philadelphia, across the U.S., and globally. We served together on boards and committees.
When I made the difficult decision to leave a job that had given me life-changing opportunities, including serving as the youngest member of the American Friends Service Committee’s international delegation to observe South Africa’s first free and fair elections in 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected, I turned to Tyrone. A year or two after he was selected as a co-Grand Marshal of Philadelphia’s Gay Pride parade, and without any solicitation on my part, he helped ensure I was chosen as a co-Grand Marshal with Ed Hermance founder and former owner of Giovanni’s Room Bookstore in 1994, during the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. I was 25 years old and on the heels of my return from South Africa.
In 1995, when I had to travel unexpectedly, he graciously hosted the late Black South African gay activist Simon Nkoli on my behalf. We co-organized Philadelphia’s only public celebration of life for our beloved brother-friend, the legendary Black gay poet Essex Hemphill, with Poet Laureate Sonia Sanchez as the featured speaker. When I answered my soul’s call to become a full-time, award-winning filmmaker, writer, and international lecturer without any financial safety net, it was with his unwavering encouragement. When my teacher and big sister-friend Toni Cade Bambara joined the ancestors on December 9, 1995, he was there to wipe my tears and comfort me. A few years later, he played a vital role in my being honored with the NAACP Philadelphia Chapter’s Exemplary Citizen Award in 1998.
When my paternal and maternal grandmothers joined the ancestral realm over a span of 12 years between them, Tyrone was with me through counsel and prayer. He shared my joy with every romantic love, and there were lots of them in my 20s and 30s, I thought would be everlasting and held me through all the heartbreaks.
And it was not unidirectional. He sought my counsel on myriad topics, I was an ear on the other side of the phone as he grieved the loss of countless friends and mentees who died during the height of the AIDS epidemic when hardly anyone gave a damn about Black gay men, and shared secrets with me that I will take to my grave.
Thirty-five years of shared history cannot be neatly summarized. What I know is this: through every iteration of who I was becoming, Tyrone remained a steady presence. So when 2020 arrived, with it another profound turning point, and I moved to D.C. to live with the love of my life, Sheila Alexander-Reid; when Sheila and I made Philadelphia our home in 2024; and when we decided to marry five months earlier than planned (because of the 2024 U.S. Presidential election results), Tyrone’s guidance, love, and presence were always there. He was, as always, by my side.
His unconditional care extended to my family of origin, especially my father and his age peer, Michael Simmons. Tyrone was not just a friend, he was family. My father and I both spoke at his 80th birthday celebration held at the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia in 2022.
.We weren’t age peers, but Tyrone never wanted me to be deferential. From the most intimate corners of our lives to our shared public commitments, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, we didn’t talk about, debate, or even disagree over. We always exchanged gifts. He had an eye for beauty, buying me some of the most exquisite silver jewelry and beautiful shawls that I will cherish and pass on. When I traveled globally, I brought him carefully chosen gifts from South Africa, France, Malaysia, India, Italy, and other places, the kind of things you select because you know someone’s taste intimately. There were no secrets between us. The love and trust we shared were rare, unwavering, and sacred.
The last time I saw Tyrone was during a joyous occasion, the inaugural Philadelphia LGBTQ+ Hall of Fame Awards Ceremony hosted by my friend and Philadelphia’s first out LGBTQ+ Councilmember Rue Landau. Tyrone and I, along with many LGBTQ+ trailblazers, were honored that evening. In a beautiful twist of fate, he arrived a few minutes late and ended up seated in the front row, between my father and me. Tyrone and I held hands through the entire ceremony. During my keynote, I publicly thanked him for nurturing, mentoring, and loving me for 35 years. Tyrone received the Living Legacy Award to a standing-room-only ovation. That memory is etched in my heart.
The last time we talked was on New Year’s eve in 2024, a few hours before my and Sheila’s intimate wedding ceremony in our home. He was under the weather and unable to attend, which he deeply regretted. Yet in true Tyrone fashion, he blessed our union over the phone, with prayer, libation, and sacred incantation. I am grateful I married with his knowledge and unwavering blessing.
In our next to last conversation, Tyrone said: “Aishah, I lived a good life filled with ups and downs but, at the end of the day and with all of the obstacles I faced as an unapologetic feminine Black gay man born in 1942, it was a good life. I am blessed. If I leave tomorrow, I would be at peace. To God be the Glory!”
He meant it. I could hear it. I could feel it in my bones. And I have been sitting with those words ever since.
Tyrone was an unwavering and unapologetic race man, and he died during Black History Month in the U.S. If there were ever a time for him to ascend into the ancestral realm, it would be during Black History Month. And Tyrone’s ascension to occur on Audre Lorde's birthday has special resonance for me. It was Lorde's words in her book, Sister Outsider, that gave me that final push, in spring 1990, to proudly and unapologetically come out as a Black, feminist lesbian. And Tyrone, who, along with my father, nurtured and supported that journey. So, in honor of being born and of dying, Audre, whom I never met in person, and Tyrone, are forever linked on February 18 in my citta (heart-mind) for transforming my life.
On February 4th, I gave a dharma talk at Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s weekly online Rainbow (LGBTQ+) sangha, Black Queer Ancestors and the Five Remembrances: Facing Impermanence With Grounded Hearts, where I honored Tyrone alongside Essex Hemphill, Marlon Riggs, Audre Lorde, and June Jordan. Of these five ancestors, only Tyrone lived into his early 80s. Essex died at 38. Marlon at 37. Audre at 58. June at 65. Four of them died from AIDS or cancer, diseases that ravaged a generation of Black queer people in the 1980s and 1990s. Their lives ended early. Too early. And the one who lived to a ripe age, still died. Tyrone accepted this. He arrived at his own death the way he arrived at everything, prepared, clear-eyed, and at peace.
I am still catching up to him.
Death is an inseparable part of life, and yet it never feels easy, especially when it comes unexpectedly. Tyrone was one of the deepest, most enduring loves of my life for over three decades. I’ve never known a platonic and spiritual love quite like ours. Death came for him the way it comes for all of us, on its own terms, at its own hour. The Five Remembrances do not promise us otherwise. What they offer is something rarer: the possibility of meeting that hour without recoil. Tyrone had already done that work.
I miss knowing he’s just a phone call away. I take comfort in knowing he lived a long, full life, and that his spirit and legacy, woven into everyone he ever loved and mentored and refused to abandon, are eternal.
Only our actions endure. Tyrone knew this. He built his life accordingly. And so the invitation the Buddha extends to each of us, to turn toward reality rather than away from it, to live with an undefended heart, is not abstract to me anymore. I learned it, in large part, from watching Tyrone Smith live.
The original language is “whether one is a man or woman,” and I altered it to be inclusive of gender identities “regardless of one’s gender identity.”
Kamma is the Pali word for the Sanskrit word Karma. Pali was the spoken language of the Buddha.
“Tyrone Smith, award-winning LGBTQ activist and AIDS awareness advocate, has died at 82,” by Gary Miles, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 26, 2025
ibid.,
Thank you friend. Appreciate this so much. I recite the Five Remembrances and Five Awarenesses everyday in my morning meditation. It is important medicine and it really deepens my appreciation for what’s right here with us in the here and now. Again thank you. 🙏🏾
I’m really grateful for the way you hold grief, love, and the Five Remembrances together…tender, truthful, and close to the bone.
Your honoring of Tyrone comes through as presence and guidance, a life shaped by care and action.