My father was shot and killed two years ago. For a long time, the only thing I could bring myself to write about him was his eulogy.
I used to write about my dad, Fernando, all the time. I wrote about being raised by a man in an apron, who taught me to cook in the tiny kitchen behind the Carol City jewelry store he owned with my mom.
I wrote about watching his eyes fill when he stood among thousands of other exiled Cubans outside of Versailles the day they learned Fidel Castro had died.
I never thought I’d have to write about my 92-year-old father being shot to death.
Nadege Green saw what I wrote. And she included it in her new book published by O Miami, More Than What Happened: The Aftermath of Gun Violence in Miami. It’s an anthology of what guns have taken from us. It’s a collection of stories, photos and poems from our neighbors in Miami-Dade County — who’ve lost loved ones. Who’ve survived shootings. Who live with daily gunfire outside their homes.
Green is a historian of Black culture, a lifelong Miami native — and a friend. Many of the works she includes in this anthology are from her time as a reporter here at WLRN.
“Radio doesn't cover gun violence in the sense of just announcing a shooting happened. But what radio does do and what I am interested in is the interiority. Radio takes you into spaces. Radio brings you to people. And that's what I wanted to do with the stories around gun violence,” said Green.
On Thursday's Sundial, we’ll spend the hour with her. With this book.
On Sundial's previous episode, we talked to nationally syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. His final column ran on December 14 after a Pulitzer Prize and over 30 years at the Miami Herald.
Listen to Sundial Monday through Thursday on WLRN, 91.3 FM, live at 1 p.m., rebroadcast at 8 p.m. Missed a show? Find every episode of Sundial on your favorite podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts and Stitcher.
