64 YEARS AGO. WAS IT WORTH IT?

Samuel Wolkoff- June 6th, 1958, forever etched in my soul. 

My father was gruesomely murdered on this day many years ago, at the age of 42.  I was 10 years old. 

He lost his life that day, I lost my childhood, my inner peace, and my soul. Samuel Wolkoff was MY FATHER. 

Tragically, I hardly remember anything about him, and almost nothing about our relationship as father and son. Today's Blog is in memory of Samuel Wolkoff, My Dad, tortured and murdered (CLICK HERE TO READ-SCROLL TO P.130 AND P.262-264). (ALSO CLICK HERE FOR MORE).

The rest of the year, the ever present demons make sure I remember those whose memories others have tried to erase, these are my family, they were human beings who will never be forgotten by me, they lived and never deserved to die in such horribly suffering ways. 

To me it's very personal when June 6th arrives every year, a very painful day. It has now been 64 agonizing years since my father Samuel Wolkoff was brutally tortured and murdered.

There are also extremely evil people who visit here. I suppose they come for many different reasons and I can see they are from all over the world.

I get emails frequently, mostly anonymous from others about the monster subhuman animal who murdered my father. They vary from other victims families murdered by the monster, friends of his, and entities that shall remain not named by me. Certain facts in this blog post and also in the book "Blood Relation" have been deliberately edited to protect myself and others.

Some of you are the cowardly, but powerfully dangerous scum bags who murdered my father, some are close murderous associates of my father, as well as those of you in the arrogant, incompetent, corrupt law enforcement systems, whose agencies knowingly covered their asses and continue to do so to this day.

In doing so, those of you in law enforcement have betrayed your sworn oaths to defend justice by deliberately participating in covering up the truth, lying, withholding documented criminal evidence, and obstructing justice in this capital offense of murder, which has no statute of limitations. You have placed your own personal needs above that of the value of human lives.

My father believed in kindness, honesty, family, hard work, ethics, and his rights as a human being to reap the fruits of his labor for himself and our family.

He was a man who did not run away from the corrupt animals who wanted a "cut of his business" for themselves. 

He believed in himself and the law enforcement, legal, supposedly ethical "systems" to protect him from those that wanted the business that he had built from nothing, with his blood and sweat.


He believed in a code of personal ethics, morality, integrity that dictated honor, family, respect, fairness, loyalty, faith in humanity, and that no one is entitled to steal from another human being their right to live.


On June 6th, 1958 the world was already very evil, corrupt, his life was cheap, and scum bags took what they wanted, from who ever they wanted. That was the day they took my father's life, his business, and all of our souls.

Today, June 6th, 2022, the world is infinitely more evil, more corrupt, life is even cheaper, scum bags enjoy their lives as they take even more of what they want, from whomever they choose.


Many of the murderers of my father, their children, and family members are still alive. We know who you ALL ARE. You have done extremely well financially and live with a high standard of living for themselves with their families having all thrived in spite of their evil deeds. 


Yes, my father was a hero, he is a hero who sacrificed his life for his beliefs. Seems old fashioned, naive, for someone to believe so strongly in doing the right thing. 

Yet somehow, he who had nothing, created a thriving business, and maintained his righteousness of believing in goodness, his business associates, his relatives, the legal/law enforcement system, and that his being a hard working, good person was to be rewarded by having a good life.


In the end, his naive belief in the humanity of others, particularly his relatives (we know who you are) proved that he was DEAD wrong and he paid for it with his life. 

We all know each other, or about each other, you know I have hidden away safely the written confidential secret official documents with my honest law enforcement and political friends, the written proof of all "missing" documented, detailed real facts that would expose the ugly truths. 

Nothing to be concerned about, it will remain buried. 

We know the deal that protects all of us, the reasons that nothing else has been done by any of us about my father's murder, the reason these documents will remain hidden, is the unspoken but very clear mutual understanding we all have forever, of don't ever again fuck with any of my family, and in return, we won't fuck with any of you by making the real truth public.

Was it worth the unimaginable pain that he felt as he was tortured slowly for 5 hours on the night of June 6, 1958? 

What must he have been thinking during those horrific hours of going in and out of consciousness as they repeatedly tightened and loosened a rope around his neck?

Samuel Wolkoff's cause of death, 5 long hours of tortured Murder By Strangulation. 

Try to hold your breath for as long as you can, then wait 40 more seconds, exhale, that will give you a tiny sense of the horrific way my father felt for 5  consecutive hours, a rope tied as a noose, was continuously alternately tightened, then loosened around his neck, while his hands were tied behind his back. 

Death, when it finally came, must have been a merciful release for my father.

The autopsy showed that my father struggled so bravely to live, that his eyeballs eventually burst, and he finally stopped breathing. His body then deposited at a desolate gas station, in the middle of the night, thrown out onto the ground, as a piece of garbage. Hold that entire scene in your mind forever, it is I can assure, gruesome and haunting in its profoundly graphic endless replay, over and over in my mind.

Oh, as an aside, his sister learned about his murder on the radio news, she immediately dropped dead of a heart attack in front of her four children.

The family never talked about it for 40 plus years, not even to speak my father's name, it is the taboo secret code followed by many families of victims, as if somehow, the unbearable pain would get less. I have spent most of my life investigating his case and eventually shared it with our family. Never have figured out if I did good or bad by reopening the wounds, but I do know, those are permanent gaping, seeping, toxic, painful holes, they never really were ever closed.

Was it worth it to believe that your goodness would triumph above evil, that god would watch over you, that law enforcement would protect you, that your wife, and children would not suffer beyond imagination for the rest of our lives?

Justice not served, justice not given, nothing complicated, nothing new, an innocent, honest, good person, a human life stolen without any remorse, it happens all the time. 

How can a loved one who dies suffering, rest in peace, ever? The answer is they cannot rest in peace because of the way they died.
Seems like a simple thing to believe and its even reduced to a short acronym, R.I.P., easy to write. I can't write it, not possible, not after all the never ending suffering of my father, and our family.

Was it worth it, my hero, my dear beloved father? 

Was it worth it?

The march of the dead continues, May/June are the saddest months for me, I dread this time of the year, horrifically gruesome memories of human, innocent lives of my family wasted. 

I am often intrigued as to why over 154,000 people as of this date have visited my Blog. 

There are many good people who come here, victims, families of victims, people seeking justice, those who are fighting against injustice, human beings who care. 

I see search terms on my Blog from people who arrive looking for information about my father, a lot of other interesting search words that only "you" would know. 

There are visitors here to this Blog who are criminals, the very worst evildoers of all kinds, organized crime family leaders, law enforcement, the curious, all are responsible by their actions or inaction's for the injustices that are specifically detailed in many of my different blog posts about all the victims I write about.

For an ultra private person like me, a Blog is obscenely public, personal, grossly revealing, definitely not my style, but  interestingly, momentarily cleansing, a way of coming out, being up front with unbearable realities, my reality. Mostly I do it for those that can no longer speak for themselves, who experienced unimaginable suffering that ended their lives. In this moment, my father's reality.

I do know that MY FATHER was a courageous HERO. 

Dead heroes, no matter how courageous they are, never get remembered by society for their acts of courage. They are quickly forgotten, except by those who loved them.

Was it worth it for MY FATHER, Samuel Wolkoff, to stand his ground and give up his life in such a terrifying, grotesque manner at the hands of cowardly pussy punks? 

The world did not care about his life and did nothing.

My father's fatal errors that cost him his life? He  believed in trust, in the sense of obligation to very close members of his family, by giving them a chance to change their ways.

The good deeds he did, paid back by these very same, who had him murdered. Horrifically ugly, but brutally true, and they all got away with it, no guilt, no conscience, didn't bother any of them, never mattered to them.

Today  we remember my courageous father. He is not resting in peace, and he never will rest in peace, that is certain.

MY SISTER IRIS

 

       

It always begins on this date every year.

My beloved sister Iris died on May 28th, 2004, and this marks the beginning of the period each year that fills me with incalculable suffering, inexplicable unfairness, tragedy that has wrought its massive destruction of so many good, loved members of my family, who deserved so very much better than they received in life and death.  

Once again, another year has passed and I dread the intensified agony of overwhelming grief that envelops me for these lost souls of my family during the upcoming months.

I need not be told that it is here, since the pain is always present, all the time, year round, but becomes insidiously unbearable as of this date, and in the next few months, every year.

I painfully miss and mourn those of my immediate family who have died, more so than at any other time, as each year passes.

Increasingly difficult, filled with the aching of a lifetime beaten down into the ever present, toxic, non stop personal demons, nightmares, flash backs, with memories vividly stamped inside my brain, as if it were just yesterday that we were all together as a family and of course, big sister and little brother.

I planted purple Iris flowers, one of them pictured above in the garden out front of my house when my sister died.

Each year I take new pictures as they spring to life and insert one on this blog in memory of her. 

I like the idea that they are perennials, returning every year, flowering in all their beauty, now looking so alive on another anniversary today of the day she died, after a courageous, painful battle to live. 

We do that a lot in my family, fighting to live life to the fullest, and when our time comes, refusing to let go until our last precious breath. They call our family fighters, survivors, and that is what we do in both living our life with happiness as a gift never to be taken for granted, and also the darkness which is part of remembering.

Iris was a unique and compassionate person who quietly touched everyone she met with her kindness and strength. 

Iris is missed by all of us who loved her. We will never forget her beautiful smile.

My sister was full of life, insightful, quiet, brave,
loyal, sagely wise, and then she was gone forever, horribly, excruciatingly painfully, and irrevocably. 

She deserved so much better in her short time on this earth but it was not to be.

Iris, my sister, a gift to me in life, was more beautiful in a million ways than these magnificent flowers. 

I will miss you forever my dear sister Iris, most of all, 

I will always miss your caring love. 

I love you. 

Love, Your little brother- Jerry.

PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY -COURAGE-AMEN FOR THE SUNFLOWER.

"I do not want my pictures in your offices, for the President is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids' photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision." Volodymyr Zelensky..PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY IS ONE OF THOSE SPECIAL HEROES WHO IS A COURAGEOUS, REAL LEADER. 

So very, very rare that a leader of a Country under attack is willing to give up his life and that of his precious children and wife to defend the democracy of his beloved nation INSTEAD OF ACCEPTING AN OFFER FROM THE WEST TO FLEE AND SET UP A GOVT. IN EXILE.

History will probably barely remember him and yet we all yearn for such bravery and caring for our own america. It is heartbreaking to see while we sit here on our asses in the u.s. listening to all the b.s. from our phony politicians and media talking heads acting "shocked" about this war that putin knew the West was full of shit when it had prior chances to call his bluff but didn't challenge him. It's always been about $ and not ethics, NEVER ABOUT democracy and helping each other.

Then to see the assholes here in our country praise putin purely for their own political egos, makes me sick, angry, and fed up with the self serving phony illusion of how "great america is". Well truth is our country is far from great and is drowning in it's own self made malignant SELFISH, PHOTO OP cesspool of lies, corruption, and evil where we don't even help our own suffering citizens, let alone standing up to save the people of Ukraine.

Not a surprise but yet another tragedy upon tragedy in this world filled with injustices for innocent victims who deserve so much better from life.

"President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky rejects asylum offers from Europe: "I will stay in my country and if I die, I will die with my soldiers."

THIS IS THE PRECIOUS FAMILY OF UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY. INSPIRING!

"I do not want my pictures in your offices, for the President is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids' photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision." Volodymyr Zelensky..

Amen- "For the Sunflower!"

Sunflowers are the national flower of Ukraine. Let's start posting them all over Facebook in support for the Ukranian people. Cover the world in Sunflowers.

Love and light for a speedy people power resolution to this war!

RAHIMA JACKSON- A HUMAN BEING-A BROKEN SYSTEM

SEATTLE AND EVERYWHERE: A BROKEN SYSYTEM-THE LIFE OF A HOMELESS PERSON WHO IS ILL.. It's a long read but worth the time to experience THE REALITY that many human beings endure to stay alive. DO YOU CARE enough to take the time read about this human being and so many others like her who live all around us, everywhere. THE VICTIMS OF INDIFFERENCE.

Pain was the first clue. Sharp, jagged streaks of it shooting up the sides of Rahima Jackson’s body. Jackson’s pain grew worse at night. It hurt to lie down, so she learned to sleep standing up, her back leaned against a wall. At first, Jackson, a 50-year-old former home health aide with an easy laugh, avoided going to the doctor. No insurance. Then the day came when she couldn’t take it anymore. A searing pain in her right breast had become too overwhelming to ignore, and Jackson pulled on her backpack and asked friends to take her to the emergency room.

Within days, Jackson was transferred to Harborview Medical Center and diagnosed with a metastasizing cancer consuming much of her spinal cord, breast tissue and bones throughout her body. She would need to start chemo right away, go on pain medication. But Jackson’s treatment plan might not mean much if she couldn’t solve a bigger problem.

She had nowhere to live. That meant Jackson would soon become one of hundreds of people in extreme poverty tumbling into a housing void, where a threadbare cohort of shelters, hospitals, nurses and social workers try to find people safe, stable places to stay while they manage serious illness. Only a fraction of those who need it see that much support.

Here, a crisis level of homeless baby boomers are living with high rates of chronic disease that require intensive care alongside mental health and substance use issues. In 2020, 31% of homeless residents surveyed in King County said they struggled with a chronic health problem, while 44% reported drug or alcohol disorders, 47% said they suffered from post-traumatic stress and 54% said they dealt with a mental health condition like depression or schizophrenia, the highest rates in all four categories in four years.

Of the nearly 20,000 homeless and housing unstable patients seen by Public Health – Seattle & King County’s Healthcare for the Homeless Network in 2020, nearly two-thirds were treated for at least one chronic health condition. People suffering from these diseases are disproportionately Black and Native, from communities that have been deprived of generational wealth over centuries. Their illnesses are often caught late, at younger ages, in advanced and rarely seen stages.

Of the shelter that is available, little, if any, is appropriate for people dealing with serious health problems, and no local residential hospice programs specifically cater to people without housing. As a result, people are dying on the street or in shelters poorly equipped to care for them, though what can be seen in the official tally of homeless deaths is an undercount. Through November of 2021, King County recorded 21 homeless deaths last year linked to a chronic illness, 14 of them outdoors or in vehicles. Many more people with chronic illness likely died by overdose, the largest single cause of homeless deaths last year.

This was the situation Jackson faced when she landed in the emergency room of St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way. To doctors, she named her worst fear, the one that had lingered in the back of her mind for months. “My mom died of cancer,” she said. “I don’t want to die like my mom.”

So, quickly, Jackson’s diagnosis, her homelessness — all things that might make others look at her with pity — became part of a mission. To find housing. To start a movement as she received cancer treatment, one meant to spread awareness about cancer symptoms and to reduce stigma against sickness.

It would start with an album.

There was little time, and Jackson didn’t know it yet, but the next year and a half would cycle her through homelessness and health care systems that were never built to care for the growing number of people like her. She started to record songs in her hospital bed with her phone.I’ve been scared and running, but not anymore, Jackson thought. I will finish what I start.

February 2020 =A long, winding path led Jackson here, to the Seattle area from Zanzibar, where Jackson’s mother died and where Jackson grew up. She moved to the U.S. in 1993, and although she was gay, she entered a relationship with a man to try for another shot at what she thought passed for normalcy.

Eventually she left the relationship and found new family in communities where LGBTQ+ people shunned elsewhere became cousins, aunties and sisters. Despite the support she found after coming out, bad relationships and financial hardships made housing elusive.

After her diagnosis, Jackson bounced between the hospital and a short-term shelter for people in crisis. While Jackson’s doctors handled her treatment, a social worker named Michael Light worked to find Jackson a longer-term place to stay. Light is part of a specialized three-person, part-time team at Harborview assigned to help homeless patients manage their stress and symptoms, navigate the medical and homelessness systems and, if needed, plan for the end of their lives. The palliative care model they follow focuses on improving quality of life for their patients, beyond the medical treatment prescribed to them by doctors.

This palliative care program, the first of its kind in the country, sees up to 80 patients a year, but that’s probably 1% of people who need this support, according to Tricia Madden, Harborview Medical Center’s director of downtown programs.

“We know we’re just scratching the tip of the iceberg,” Madden said. “We always have a waiting list. We always have people trying to refer more people than we can take care of.”

The palliative care team started out as a pilot in 2013, when health care workers saw hospitals overwhelmed with people suffering from chronic homelessness and advanced diseases. The diseases that they saw — cancer, kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — bloomed into rarely seen extremes because people were stranded from regular health care.

And, from most housing options. Local homeless shelters already struggle with an aging population, many with complex needs. Several also prohibit the pain medications needed to manage symptoms of diseases like cancer.

Skilled nursing and hospice facilities that might be appropriate for patients like Jackson aren’t much of an option either. They often reject homeless patients because their needs are so high and the rates that Medicaid pays are so low, doctors and social workers say.

University of Washington professor and nurse practitioner Josephine Ensign recently published a book “Skid Road” that chronicles her research into the historical roots of homelessness and poverty in Seattle. Ensign describes a takeaway from researching her book: “Because of the unique qualities of Seattle again since the settler colonial founding is the fact that we’ve actually had per capita one of the highest rates of homeless from the very beginning. This is not something new,” said Ensign. (Daniel Kim / The Seattle Times)

Seattle has struggled to care for sick and homeless people since the 1800s.

Today, the palliative care team costs about $225,000 a year, funded by Public Health’s Healthcare for the Homeless program, Harborview Medical Center, private foundations and patient insurance. Madden and her colleagues would like to expand the program but don’t have the money to, she said.

At the end of February, Light landed Jackson a bed at Harborview’s Medical Respite program, a stopgap shelter next to the hospital doctors use so they don’t have to discharge patients directly to the street. Homeless patients can receive daily nursing care there for up to six weeks, and people living with serious illness can stay there for up to six months.

Finally, Jackson found a place she could breathe. Since her breast cancer diagnosis spring of 2020, Rahima Jackson, leaving Harborview’s respite center had four admissions to medical respite, four major hospitalizations and stayed at a couple of shelters, all while getting treatment at multiple health care institutions with multiple teams.

August 2020

When Jackson’s time at medical respite ran out in August 2020, she had to move. One of the few places available was a poor fit: a shelter for women in recovery from substance use disorder that had prohibited marijuana and only allowed certain kinds of prescription pain medication.

Jackson didn’t discuss it with many people, but she sometimes used methamphetamine. Some of the people closest to Jackson didn’t even know about this, though it’s common for homeless people, especially women, to use meth to stay alert at night when they’re most vulnerable. Jackson’s doctors and care team were aware of her meth use, but it never caused enough concern to interfere with her treatment or housing plans. Instead, she was placed at the shelter because of space reasons.

At the shelter, it wasn’t Jackson’s meth use that raised alarms, if the shelter was even aware of it. Instead, she was reprimanded at the shelter for having the pain medication and marijuana she used to treat her cancer symptoms. She felt utterly isolated and angry, and intentionally overdosed on sleeping pills.

When Jackson awoke, she was back at Harborview. She regretted overdosing, she told Light, but there was no way she’d be going back to that shelter.

February 2021

After her overdose, Jackson moved to the Red Lion hotel in Renton, a building transformed into a shelter during the pandemic. Within her first few weeks, she accidentally locked herself out of her room, leaving her stranded from the pain medication she took every day at 9 a.m.

She asked the front desk for help, she said, and was told someone would come up shortly. For a long time, no one did. The symptoms worsened. Pain that felt like a buzz saw shearing into her shins, her neck, behind her ear. Jackson said she confronted a supervisor who became angry with her and told her, “This is not a hospital. This is not a hotel. This is a shelter.” Still, this shelter was better than the other places she had been in the past year.

March 2021-Shortly after noon on a Friday, Jackson pressed “record” on her phone. “What’s up, she howled into the device. “What’s happening, what’s happening, what’s happe-NING?” She paused before starting to speak again, her tone matter-of-fact. OK. Let me introduce myself. Jackson explained she was on the verge of creating something big. But her time to do it was running out. I’m dying anyway. Just make my dream come true, please. Softly, Jackson began to cry. Something metallic rattled, maybe the sides of a hospital bed. Four of her songs were ready to be listened to, she said. It’s about my story, but the way I said it with love, with, you know, with everything.

April 2021- At the Red Lion, Jackson made her way to the makeshift clinic in a ground-floor room with striped curtains framing a view of the parking lot where she spent most mornings, humming melodies in a camp chair with coffee, tilting her face to let her skin soak in the sun.

As Jackson settled into an exam chair, Dr. Russell Berg, a lanky Harborview doctor, scooted over to his patient’s side. The room, once used for paying guests, now hosted a vitals machine and a cramped desk, just big enough for a scanner, a label-maker and a naked bulb.

Light perched on a bedside table nearby while Berg asked Jackson if she had medical concerns. Jackson skipped over the question. She wanted to talk about bigger things: how homeless people were dehumanized by society, and sometimes even by shelter staff, and the importance of treating people with kindness. Light mentioned to the doctor that Jackson was working on an album on these themes. “Mr. Michael’s going to put it together,” Jackson told the doctor, gesturing to Light.

May 2021 -Jackson had trouble sleeping the night before, anxious about meeting her housing case manager in Pioneer Square on time to look at an apartment. “I had a dream about this,” Jackson told Joshua Torregrossa as they waited for the bus. “I need this place.” Jackson had never been like this about punctuality before. But her relationship with time had shifted since the diagnosis. Where time had once felt flexible, now Jackson felt the minutes passing, circling her as she moved through the world.

The building, named The Jackson for its intersection at Jackson Street, swept up from the sidewalk, 532 brand new units across two buildings, all metal and glass exteriors. It got a tax break from the city for setting aside affordable units, which in this case meant an apartment that cost either $1,481 or $1,581 a month. Jackson had won a rare federal voucher that could pay her rent.

It felt like fate. Inside, assistant building manager Abby Herro settled them into the corner of a cavernous lounge, where she pulled out an iPad for a virtual tour. “I picked out a couple options,” Herro said, her finger tapping the screen. But first, Torregrossa explained that Jackson’s voucher had strict criteria and only allowed for bedrooms with an egress. Bedrooms without windows wouldn’t cut it. “I’m so sorry,” Herro said. She only had windowless bedroom units left.

Jackson was quiet for a moment, her expression unreadable behind her mask. Herro asked if she’d still like to see the amenities and showed Jackson a jazz lounge in the building. Jackson perked up at the mention of music. Softly, she began to sing, her voice carrying up to the high ceilings.

Renewals would be up in June or July, Herro said. They could check back in then. “You have to pinch yourself,” Jackson joked to Torregrossa and Herro, pulling at the skin on her hand, her eyes wide. “I must stay alive, I must stay alive.”

Social worker Michael Light and registered nurse Joe Hufford are part of the only mobile outreach palliative care team in the country serving people who have serious illness and live without stable housing.

July 2021- Inside a Pioneer Square coffee shop over a table of patient notes and empty plastic coffee cups, Light and palliative care nurse Joe Hufford tried to make sense of where their clients were coming and going. The two went through the details on their list quickly, shaking their heads at doctor-ordered treatment plans that would be impossible for their patients to adhere to.

One patient with kidney failure and masses of bacteria clustered around her organs from years of injecting heroin had been set up on a plan to get on methadone. This patient had never once showed up for a prescheduled appointment but was supposed to show up every day at an office in Sodo. Her antibiotics were also expected to be delivered to a dispensing machine inside the emergency department at night. The next day, the medications were nowhere to be found.

Tracking down and working with the roughly 40 patients assigned to Hufford and Light at any given time who are bouncing among streets, shelters and the hospital is just a portion of their jobs. The rest of the time, the two work at Harborview or in shelters. But even shelter or supportive housing programs are not set up to handle the medical or emotional needs of people who are dying. Staff are overwhelmed.

Joy Estill, an administrator at the St. Martin de Porres men’s shelter in Sodo, sometimes just closes the door to her office and cries. She often sees late-stage kidney disease and severe mental illness from a lifetime on the streets. Shelter residents need help doing simple tasks — going to the bathroom, walking up stairs — and sometimes care that goes beyond the training of shelter staff, like administering morphine.

“We care what happens, but we don’t have the actual physical expertise for this,” Estill said. “Right now there’s no place for some of these people.”

Late July 2021- Jackson’s brain and body had begun to feel like they were talking past each other. It was hard to stay focused, and she struggled to choose between anti-depressants or the headaches she believed they caused. She was hospitalized for a seizure, after which she had trouble controlling her bladder. Cancer pain wouldn’t leave her left side, and she began to walk with a cane. And she still didn’t have housing.

A close friend was worried. After losing contact with Jackson for several months, Latasha Perkins had just found out Jackson had been hospitalized and had nowhere to live. In late July, Perkins flew out to Seattle from Chicago and rented a hotel room near the airport. The security gate around the Red Lion shelter where Jackson had been living reminded her of a prison. She took Jackson to the hotel where she was staying, gave her CBD oil for her pain and tried to get her to eat steak and potatoes.

Dr. Leslie Enzian, Jackson’s primary care provider, asked Jackson when she might finally get into an apartment of her own. “Any day from now,” Jackson said. “Any day from today. Any day.” Dr. Enzian urged her patient to come up with a backup plan. When Perkins checked out of her hotel, Jackson would have to check out, too.

But Jackson’s doctors were optimistic that she’d show signs of responding to treatment. Enzian asked about Jackson’s appetite — did she feel interested in food? As Jackson’s answer strayed to other concerns, Perkins leaned in close to her friend, her long blond braids falling onto her forearms folded in her lap. She needed to keep Jackson on track. “But do you have an appetite?” Perkins asked Jackson, her tone gentle, but firm. “Yes or no?”

August 2021-Finally, Torregrossa found Jackson a place. It had been a year and a half since her diagnosis. The one-bedroom apartment in a new low-income building overlooked the neighborhood’s Vietnamese delis and shopping centers. On clear days, Jackson could see Mount Rainier.

The day she moved in, Jackson and Light walked over to the window and high-fived. “Does it feel real?” Light asked. “I have to pinch myself,” she said. Before she left Harborview’s Medical Respite program, Jackson clasped a pile of going-away gifts from her friends — comfy clothes, a $50 scratch-off lottery ticket — as she waited for Light to pick her up and take her to a home that was finally hers. She spoke softly, her voice raspy and tired. “We made it. We made it,” she murmured. “And it’s going to be so beautiful.”

Nine days after Jackson moved into her apartment, she died.

The news surprised everyone, her doctors included. Jackson had seemed to be doing well. The cancer hadn’t shown signs of progression at her last scan. She had been optimistic about the time she had left, the time she had to launch her album.

The Medical Examiner’s Office determined her death to be an accident, a toxic combination of meth, Jackson’s medications for her cancer symptoms, including prescribed fentanyl, and her anti-depressants. She may have been particularly vulnerable because of her advanced cancer and the length of time she had been using meth. Now Light and Torregrossa were back at the apartment, slowly and quietly packing up the things they had helped Jackson move in with just two weeks earlier. Light pulled down a set of pajamas hanging behind the bathroom door, lifted the sheets off Jackson’s mattress and folded them. He remembered the last time he saw her, standing at that window, cradling a little wooden sign, a new decoration for her new apartment.

It read, “The future is bright.”

“Thank you, Seattle”In honor and remembrance of the beautiful Rahima Jackson. She wrote and recorded this song, on her hospital bed, while undergoing cancer treatment. This song serves as an homage to the city of Seattle and the community of people who helped her in her healing journey. Watch the music video below.

CLICK ON HERE TO WATCH-"THANK

YOU SEATTLE" A MUSIC VIDEO  BY RAHIMA JACKSON