All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation

After becoming a couple, Gilbert and Rayya were sexually intimate for the first time. Gilbert was already physically comfortable and uninhibited with Rayya after years of close friendship. The two talked about their deep infatuation and Gilbert felt that the story of their relationship “finally made sense” (157). While Gilbert slept, Rayya walked in circles around the bed, filled with energy and wanting to protect Gilbert in life and after death.

Once she processed her diagnosis, Rayya felt euphoric about her impending death, realizing that she would never have to worry about the stressful or depressing aspects of life ever again. She took comfort in knowing roughly when she would die, and what she would die of, and decided to embrace all her passions and live wildly while she could. Gilbert did everything she could to make Rayya’s life exciting and interesting, helping her record music, speak to prison inmates, be featured in a documentary about death, perform readings, and generally enjoy life. Rayya’s determination to live big was contagious, and despite the sad circumstances, Gilbert also felt exhilarated to be her lover and to be living without “the shackles of respectability and responsibility” (162).