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Daina HOWELL
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Daina HOWELL Obituary
Family-Placed Death Notice
HOWELL, Daina DAINA MORA HOWELL Daina Mora Howell departed from this earth on September 6, 2012. The memorial service will be held at 3:00pm on Monday September 17th 2012 at Hillside Presbyterian Church, 1879 Columbia Drive, Decatur, GA.
To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.
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Tanjala Wright
September 8, 2022
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Paula Hobgood
October 5, 2012
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October 2, 2012
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September 18, 2012
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Marius Mitchell
September 17, 2012
To the Howell family:
My thoughts, prayers, and condolences go out to you all during this difficult time. May you be comforted by the peace that is found in our Lord in Savior, Jesus Christ.
God bless.
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Eric Lacefield
September 17, 2012
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September 17, 2012
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Melba Durr
September 17, 2012
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Adrienne Williams
September 16, 2012
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September 16, 2012
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Toni Fields
September 16, 2012
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Sandy Duncan
September 15, 2012
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Sandy Duncan
September 15, 2012
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Anita Graham Phillips
September 15, 2012
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Tanjala Wright September 14, 2012
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Tanjala Wright
September 14, 2012
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Mr. James and Mrs. Rosa Stewart
September 14, 2012
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September 14, 2012
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September 14, 2012
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Deunya H.
September 14, 2012
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In Memory
When Daina and I reconnected and started to date again in the summer of 2008, I would often ask her why she didn’t accept Facebook friend requests from Amherst alums and why she never made an attempt to go back to the College to finish her degree. In true Daina fashion, she answered the latter question simply, though poignantly by stating she had her Amherst College education and did not “need a piece of paper to prove that.” And as for fellow Amherst alums, well, many of you reading this probably connected with Daina at some point via social media or otherwise within the last three or four years. Like many of us, Daina’s experience at Amherst was a hodgepodge mixture of emotions, some strong enough to necessitate that she spend several years off the College’s radar. But when we started talking about our time at Amherst and reading about the lives of so many people we had known in one capacity at Amherst, yet who lived vastly different lives captured in fairly good detail on social media, I saw the same renaissance in Daina that I had experienced myself when I finally accepted Amherst as my own and decided to embrace and celebrate most of its history and traditions.
Daina came to Amherst by way of Atlanta. I was introduced to her by her Pratt roommate, Anita Graham. I had a very long and very emotional chat with Anita after I had spent several days agonizing over the emotional toll writing this piece would bring. I was taken back to my initial meeting with Daina, when I met this gorgeous, energetic, smart and creative (and southern) woman who talked like me, listened to the same kinds of music as me and who even had the same fashion sense as me. Suffice it to say that I was hopelessly smitten, and for the first time in my life, I knew what true love was.
Many people will remember Daina as an energetic , social butterfly. Some of you will recall that she loved the ocean, that she loved horses and that she was possessed of a disarming personality such that she could often elicit smiles and laughs from people who (rightfully so, usually) probably should have been scowling at her instead. The epigraph to the poem I wrote for Daina's mother and her daughter and read during her memorial service in early August was taken from Poe's Annabel Lee, "and neither the angels in heaven above/ nor the demons down under the sea/ could ever dissever my soul from the soul/ of the beautiful Annabel Lee." On the one hand, this reference is a reflection of the simple truth that I loved Daina from the day I met her. But more than that, I included the reference because it serves as a constant reminder of Daina's unique ability to reconcile her deeply rooted Christian faith with her acceptance of and embracing of various other faiths from around the world.
Prior to coming to Amherst, Daina had been a student at Southwest Dekalb High School, in Decatur, Georgia, where she played trumpet in the school's marching band. Daina also played piano, having started taking lessons at the age of four, and it's the image of her playing accompanying piano to Anita's rendition of "His Eye is on the Sparrow" during Harlem Renaissance in the fall of her first year at Amherst that is perhaps the most indelible memory I have from her time at Amherst. Daina pursued a degree in Biology and she was also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
I suppose I could write a book or a longer poem to most accurately convey the Daina I knew. I know I can't do it in the 300 words or so that I'm supposed to limit myself to in this column (a limit, I'm sure I've already well exceeded). But there are chapters to any such book that would have to be written by others; Daina disappeared from my life around 1996 and I never heard from her again until 2008. We started dating, and that's when I met her beautiful, talented and unique daughter, Drew Art. During our second relationship together, I learned that Daina was even more creative than I had previously known. In addition to musical instruments, Daina was also a painter. Most of her works are hand paintings that she did jointly with Drew. I recall spending long hours in her tiny studio watching her mix colors and paint until the sun rose, dancing or complaining or laughing, but always having incense burning and Bob Marley playing in the background. She shared with me much about the various journeys she had taken, and I understood that I had connected with someone who truly did look to get the most of each day. Daina saw life as a blessing and saw goodness in everything and everyone. She was uncompromising in her belief that each of us have a greater purpose and all of us have a responsibility to be good and kind to one another, to embrace and celebrate our differences, and to accept and appreciate life as the gift it truly should be. I suppose it would not be revealing too much if I revealed here that it was through my interaction with Daina that I truly learned to appreciate my own talents and gifts and to understand that the ultimate key to happiness is understanding one's self, accepting that self and living one's life accordingly. All that's to say that I nearly died in 2008, and without Daina, I most assuredly would have. Whether doing yoga poses in Jamaica or feeding turtles in the little pond close to her home in Stone Mountain, Daina lived life simply and on her own terms.
And so I've struggled mightily writing this. How can one tell the tale of someone so complicated. How does one tell all the good and leave the valuable lessons from the bad behind? How can one complete a work of art when so many of the necessary colors are missing? I suppose her manic dash from my room in Morrow to attend the dreaded 9am Calculus class is a start. There are also the days we spent walking on what is now the Norwottuck Rail Trail, just looking at each other while listening to life play out its magnificent existence all around us; I remember using one such trip to explain to her that the pungent smell overwhelming us emanated from ripening muscadines, which she bravely tried once and dismissed as too tart and a bit tingly. I suppose I'd also have to mention the frantic 2am drive to Athens to pick her up or weekends with Drew at a West Indian festival or in a park or just driving anywhere and nowhere.
There was much to Daina that I'll never know. But she loved her family unfailingly! Daina's wonderful spirit left this Earth on September 6, 2012. I had just spoken to her on her 39th birthday, almost exactly a month earlier (August 7). She had moved to Texas from Stone Mountain, Georgia. She is survived by her wonderful daughter, Drew. In addition, her parents, Sharon and Robert Howell still reside in Stone Mountain. Daina's wonderfully creative siblings include her younger sister, Amber Min-Khorde, two brothers, Jasman Cy and Marco Lennon and her wonderfully perceptive and protective older sister, April Melody. And while I know it from Blade Runner, I'm pretty sure there is a Chinese proverb that reads, "the flame the burns twice as bright, burns half as long." Daina's life was much too short and her death sudden and unexpected. And while leukemia may have ultimately taken her away from us, her time here embodied our wonderful motto, "Terras Irradient." Her light truly did burn twice as bright!
Stan Calhoun '94
Faith
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
—Edgar Alan Poe
“Cha-Cha bug”, at least that’s what you called it –
Some fiercely determined insect hell-bent
On making your arrival to Western Massachusetts
Memorable, at least in memory,
Where each telling builds on the last
Creating storylines carried forth some twenty odd years later;
An otherwise beetle or cicada or similar strange familiar
Insect home in this new home away from home of yours.
Bending those same twenty years backwards
I reach for the you I knew then to ease the loss
Of the you I now know when, when the you I now know
Went back to embrace that you I knew then
And found a new home away from home, only permanent.
Do I sing of the days and the life that we made,
Whether walking to your dorm or mine,
Over snow covered fields and Memorial Hill?
Would anyone guess that a sweet, musky and pervasive scent,
That same scent once sparking flashbacks to youth football,
Shoddy equipment bathroom breaks in a copse of trees
Redolent with the smell of muscadines in varying degrees of ripeness
Could redefine a poet’s memory? We walked the Norwottuck
When it was still an abandoned railroad just east of the clay tennis courts
On the eastern expanse of the college’s border, that part connecting with
And seeming to become a part of that nebulous region dubbed the Bird Sanctuary
I hope to take her there, you know.
To take that same walk on the abandoned tracks, now a well-used bike trail.
To show her the steps we walked from Pratt to Morrow to Valentine to Drew;
How ironic then that her name is shared with that place,
That epicenter of our shared black cultural Amherst experience
A much refined version of which is reflected in her hair
Which mirror yours, her smile your smile too
At least to me.
I doubt you’d recognize that part anymore –
You know, the area behind Milliken, that out of the way dorm
Rumored to have once been a hospital for mental patients –
Well Milliken is gone, replaced with King and Weiland
And some modular housing with a former purpose
Since forgotten or maybe redefined for each year's new purpose.
But I digress.
The hardest part is tripping over the pain and selfish sadness
To get to those coveted images, the moment during Harlem Renaissance
When you were the accompanying pianist to “His Eye is on the Sparrow”
Resplendent in black cocktail dress with white borders
Nervously confident throughout, predictably self-critical afterwards;
That moment you reappeared, as if you had always been visible
To the various fruitless internet searches these hands conducted
From time to time, and more, hoping for the you I knew,
Find ing you again, somewhat, but so much more.
We walked the streets I talked about in poems
As twenty years converged and vows renewed;
I met a family known yet never seen,
And knew our lives held common destinies.
From Atlantic Station's trendy modernity
To the Jamaican sunsets competing for camera space
With brilliant flashes of lightning imbedded in clouds
So like the clouds illuminated by some famous surrealist's art;
The name escapes me now; it always has.
Whether watching in raptured wakefulness
While you mixed colors and used nature's paintbrushes
To paint those lasting images inspired by Drew's first touch
Or drawing understanding in retrospect, I've found true
Meaning in my own life, by watching you truly live yours
And sharing it, if only for another moment.
My dear sweet perfect child; Her, your (and my) Drew Bear,
Me, her "Mr. Funny Funny."
I'm blessed to have shared the love you share with her,
I'm alive because you both showed me a life worth living,
A faith worth believing.
What then is the end to a poem with no ending?
Perhaps it's just the beginning,
Or simply, a smile.
—Stan Calhoun
Sept. 17, 2012
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Deceased September 6, 201288888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Contact
Family
Personal
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Former
- Personal TrainrSelf EmployedStart:01/2000End:09/2012
- Editorial AsstSpanish Daily El DiarioEnd:01/2000
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Amherst
Reunion Class
- 1996
Other Academic
Secondary Schools
- Southwest Dekalb High School
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Amherst
- Chapman Dormitory
- Cohan Dormitory
- Coolidge Dormitory
- Milliken Dormitory
- Morrow Dormitory
- Pratt Dormitory
- South Dormitory
Post-Graduate
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