Day Two. I still can not believe we do not have him with us any more.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I am getting text messages from old friends telling me how tough this time must be for me. It is. Outside of losing my mom, my dad, and my aunt, no event has saddened me this much. It will be tough to think of him in the past tense. He will always be alive and full of life in my mind. As the Nicki Minaj lyric goes, "... everybody dies but not everybody lives " and, my, did that man live. He mixed with the high and the low and treated everybody the same.

Muhammad Ali defined my formative years. I can remember as a young man imitating his talk, his poetry. Heck, I even used to box with my friends and try to duplicate his inimitable style that he picked up from Jersey Joe Walcott and Sugar Ray Robinson.

I was thrilled by his victories and devastated by his defeats. I will say I was not shocked by his losses at the end of his career to Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick. "Old fighters don't paint beautiful canvases . They became part of them."

Than you for what you did for me, for your race, for your nation, and for your world.

I love you, Champ.

[brer cat]

1. ...

[WIProgressive88]

2. Beautiful post.

[Surya Gayatri]

3. Grieve not. His Parkinson's suffering is over, but his poetry and spirit live on.

[ismnotwasm]

4. My husband is glued to the TV

Watching commentary, watching old fights, just...watching and grieving. A huge loss. A great man.

[Recursion]

5. Your love proves he is in fact still with us

I have seen ballets in Vienna and Moscow, but I have still never seen grace like him in the ring, or out of it.

[Digital Puppy]

6. Amen. Thank you for this post.

I'm still finding it a bit hard to talk about the tremendous impact he had on me growing up. One of the things I remember wanting to do was to watch Wide World of Sports just in case Howard Cosell had Ali on as a guest!

It is my hope that we can collectively keep his spirit and purpose alive (even though it's difficult to do in the age of Kardashians and current political climate....)

[Kind of Blue]

7. I'm still having a hard time thinking about

the loss of Muhammad Ali, too. Fondly, I remember him from another perspective from my late dad's perspective, what he meant to Africa and Africans.

I saw this the other day and it made me smile. I hope that's how we'll eventually remember those we love and who have passed, with joy and breakout into big smiles.