In Loving Memory

of

Camille Cole Howard

(1950-2003)

by Jamie Walker

Camille Cole Howard (a.k.a. "Olivia" in 101 Ways) was my mentor in the Drama Department at San Francisco State University. I entered the program in the Fall of 1994 and eventually graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelors Degree in Theatre Arts in May 1998.  I was fresh out of high school when I first entered the Drama Department at San Francisco State University and desperately tried to add her Acting I: Class, which was always full. Luckily, I got in with another young African American actress and, within no time of meeting me and seeing me perform numerous monologues, skits, and plays for her class, Camille recognized that I was an "enormously gifted performer" and had a "truly complex talent."

"Do you have a mentor?" Camille asked me, kindly, one day after I had just finished rehearsing a scene for her Drama class.

"No," I said smiling.

"Well, would you like me to be it?" she asked with a smile and slight twinkle in her eye.

"Sure! Okay." I said laughing, happy that she took such a profound interest in my life, growth, and development.

And that was that. Camille took me under her apprenticeship for the next four years, tutoring me in her Advanced Acting classes at San Francisco State University while mentoring me (outside of the classroom) on Tuesdays and Thursdays during her office hours at San Francisco State University. She began calling me by a nickname that only she had created for me: "J.D." 

Years later, I would begin my own publishing company and call it: J.D. Publishing Group.

Inside the classroom, Camille helped me hone and refine my acting skills. She watched, praised and celebrated each success I made; each role I  landed (both in and outside of the university). She watched me "grow and deepen as an actress" when I performed plays for her class (Arcadia, The Crucible, Fences, Macbeth, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enough, etc.) and later plays at the university (which included The House of Bernada Alba, Nobody Knows by James Baldwin, and Fires in the Mirror by Anna Deveare Smith). Camille cheered when I toured with The San Francisco Mime Troupe and The African American Shakespeare Company. She congratulated me when I made it into John Howard Swain's Acting for Commercials class; when I starred in mini-series on TV; music videos on BET; CD-Rom's; and later, major motion pictures. She also filled with tears when her generous three-page letter of recommendation helped me to get the Robert A. Corrigan President's Alumni Scholarship (at SFSU); The Outstanding Undergraduate Black Actress Award; The University Women's Association Scholarship; The Franum Scholarship Award for Outstanding Black Women; and a full-ride to study in the Masters English Program at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

During the course of my stay at San Francisco State University, Camille decided to take a sabbatical and begin working on a book of a cherished African American actress by the name of Rose McClendon. Camille said Rose McClendon "looked like us" and that she was "the greatest actress in the whole wide world." :) Camille told me that once, while she was living in New York, her daughter discovered a picture of Rose McClendon in an old antique shop and thought it was her. This is part of the legend behind the inspiration for her book, Black Duse. 

Rose McClendon

As inspiration, I painted Camille a little African American angel, which she loved, and placed right above her writer's desk. She named the angel, "Gabriella Danielle" (after the angel Gabriel in the Bible and me), and always advised, "As the little angel Gabriella looks over me [as I write], I know that she looks over you."

During the course of her sabbatical, Camille and I decided to keep in touch via letter writing. She sent me letters in the mail--sometimes two and three times a week(!)--mostly on meditation, Buddhism, spirituality, and prayer. She sent me quotes and clippings from The New York Times about Black women's book clubs. She sent favorite quotes from her own mentor, Martha Graham, with whom she studied dance.

Camille recommended books to me by Marianne Williamson  (Illuminata) and Nan C. Merrill (Psalms for Praying). She advised me to study with her  mentor, Jacob Needleman, "the spirituality guru" in the Philosophy Department at SFSU and author of A Little Book On Love. What a beautiful book, much like Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John, which Camille encouraged me to read because she thought it mirrored our own relationship--as mentor/student, confidante/best-friend. Camille thought Jack Kornfield's book, A Path With Heart, was "exquisite" and encouraged me to read it. I loved it and would later end up quoting from it in my own book. I devoured all of the books and little mailings she sent to me in the mail from Friends of Silence. Camille quoted from the Gospels (e.g. The Gospel of Thomas), Kabir, St. Francis of Assisi, and numerous others. She recommended books for me to read like Primary Speech: A Return to Prayer by Ann and Barry Ulanov and Paulo Cuehlo's By the River Piedra I Sat Down and I Wept 

I wrote Camille back (my letters were sometimes seven and ten pages!), quoting from the same books she recommended, in addition to books like A Course In Miracles; The Gospel of Thomas; Double Stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers and Daughters; and numerous others. The letters that we wrote to each other over the course of five or six years were hilarious and full of laughter. They were also sometimes full of tears. Camille and I had initially planned to publish our letters and entitle them "Letters to a Young Actor" based off of the book "Letters to a Young Poet" that I had so greatly loved and cherished as an undergrad.

Camille told me that I was her "other daughter" and I called her "my other mother." We were truly inseparable and loved each other very much. She said her own daughter and I were "like sisters." :) That touched me, for I thought she and my mother were like sisters, too. 

During the course of her sabbatical, Camille said she wanted to learn how to become a "Spiritual Advisor." She figured if she was mentoring and "spiritually advising" me, then she might as well "find out what she was really doing" and learn how to help "spiritually advise" other people. 

Camille said she used one of the letters I wrote to her to help her gain entrance into The Mercy Center, which is located in Burlingame, CA. And what a delight it was when we finally found out she was accepted! I got the cutest little, yellow, hand-made postcard in the mail from  Camille that said, "Yes! Yes! Yes! I've been accepted into the second year at the Mercy Center!!!" (ha.) :) We were both thrilled! 

Camille and I had a psychic connection with each other. We called everything that we did or that ever happened to us "Divine Order." Often, we cracked each other up with the "divine order" that continued to abound in our lives.

In one of her letters that she wrote to me, Camille told me that God was not only a "He," but, more importantly, "He" was a "She." I was about twenty-two years old when I first read a letter by her that said: "So I'm wondering why you keep referring to God as He? What's up with that, J.D.?!" I laughed, for Camille was basically teaching me that God consisted of both masculine and feminine energies. She thought God was a Woman (boy I was I thrilled to learn it) and celebrated the "Divine Goddesses" of Greek mythology, Buddhism and Hinduism. Camille not only "initiated" me, then, as I journeyed into womanhood, but she also became my entrance into "feminism" and "feminist theory." She taught me to recognize the Divine Goddesses (especially the God within) and to understand the "Divine Feminine" within me; i.e. women's sexuality; womanly language, metaphors, and spirituality untainted by the "Law" or racist-sexist capitalist patriarchs. Camille taught me not to fear the Divine Presence (the Divine Feminine within me, within her, or all of us). She was teaching me how to love myself unconditionally and how to embrace my own sacred well of power.

Camille's support was encouraging and invaluable, especially because, at the time, I was currently suffering from a depression; was not getting along with my own mother at home; and was learning how to let go of the pain that I had endured from surviving years of childhood sexual abuse. 

Camille encouraged me to "wrestle with my sadness" and to look deep into my biblical dreams for the Divine wisdom they could offer and behold. She said, "Jamie, wrestle with your sadness. I have wrestled, too." She encouraged me to look my angel right-straight dead in the eye the next time and tell him, as did Jacob once did in the Bible: "Now. I will not let you go until you bless me."

Camille enjoyed our correspondence over the years (as much as I) and also discovered that I was "a very talented writer." She encouraged me to write because, as she put it: "Acting alone cannot sustain a truly complex talent. Period." I was a poet and had a secret dream to one day publish and write fiction. I had already begun publishing my poetry as a teenager and writing several "letters to the editor" of The Oakland Tribune (some of which were eventually published).

Camille nudged me in the write direction, nurturing my love for writing, and encouraging me to read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: A Writer's Life. In no time, I began writing my first book, 101 Ways Black Women Can Learn to Love Themselves: A Gift for Women of All Ages, when I was twenty-one years old. (I stayed in the library; in favorite used and old bookstores around Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland, California; devouring books by writers; devouring books on writing; books that featured writers talking about themselves or being interviewed by other people).

I dedicated my first book to Camille, which I finished while in Graduate School at Howard University. (Isn't it "Divine Order" that Camille's last name is also Howard?) In my book, I included much of the wisdom she had imparted to me over the years, as I was on my own journey to self-love and re-membering how to love myself unconditionally.

Camille believed in me when I, at times, did not believe in myself. She was saddened to see me leave away for Grad School at Howard University, just as I was saddened to leave her (my family and the Bay Area) to head to Washington, D.C. to make a name and career for myself. The separation broke both of our hearts. We vowed, however, to keep in touch over the years even though both of our lives got much more complex and extremely busy. Camille said she'd continue to "cheer me on the from the sidelines" (just as I would do and did for her). We were so good for each other's Spirit and growth! :)

Indeed, Camille and I lost touch over the years while I was away in Grad School, but I never stopped missing her or thanking her for all of the wonderful things she did and exposed in my life. I know that if it weren't for her generous letter of recommendation, I may have never gained acceptance into Howard University's Masters program in African American and Caribbean Literature. 

I received my M.A. in English in 2000, and am now finishing my Ph.D. in English at Howard. My masters thesis, which I dedicated to Camille and which received an "A" with Distinction," is called "The (M)Other-Daughter Bond: A Psychoanalytic Feminist Critique of the Bildungsroman in Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John (using Lacanian psychology and analysis)." My Doctoral dissertation is on my other mentor, poet Sonia Sanchez. That will be complete May 2004, when I will receive my Ph.D. (thanks to Camille)

It was Camille who I looked up to, for she was a dancer and full of grace and wit. She was also a "Doctor" and could take "sabbaticals" (which sounded absolutely lovely to me who needed a job flexible enough to allow me to devote more time to my writing and my craft).

I had planned to mail her an invitation to the graduation ceremonies. After her passing, now I know she will already be there.

Indeed, I was saddened to learn of Camille's passing: I had just returned from participating in a big Gala and Awards Dinner (given by Camille O. Cosby and Renee Poussaint), where I was asked to speak, honoring legendary, "visionary" elders over the age of seventy (like Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Geoffrey Holder, John Hope Franklin, Dorothy Irene Height, and countless others) at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Inspired by the beautiful ceremony on mentors, I sat in the audience in tears, thinking about Camille. 

When I got home that evening (after the celebration on honoring our mentors at the Kennedy Center), I decided to do a "google.com" search on Camille. I wanted to read about what she had been up to and to see what she was doing. Right after I finished typing her full name in google, a new email suddenly arrived in my email account.

The subject line read: "Re: Camille Howard." 

"Oh, wow," I thought to myself. "This is Divine Order."

However, the email was not happy, and offered no new exciting news. It said that, sadly, Camille Howard had passed away over the weekend. And that the Memorial Mass, which was held for her at St. Mary Magdalen (the day before I opened  the heart breaking email bearing the depressing news) had already come and gone. 

Of course, I was devastated after coming home from the beautiful celebration about honoring our mentors at The Kennedy Center--only to discover that mine had passed away. I sat at my computer and wept until 8am the next morning. I had no idea that Camille was sick or that she had been battling cancer for the past seven months. 

Nearly two months before her passing I did another search on her to see what classes she was teaching at the University. I was thrilled to learn she was teaching the letters of Catherine Clement and Julia Kristeva (as we had planned to publish our own letters and entitle them "Letters to a Young Actor." I have no doubt in my mind Camille's decision to teach their letters were, in part, inspired the letters we had written to each other over the years, and planned to also publish. Four months before her passing (in June 2003), I decided to send her a hardcover of my first book, 101 Ways Black Women Can Learn to Love Themselves: A Gift for Women of All Ages, which  I autographed, along with a card inside, telling her thank you for everything she had done for me, and that I'd soon be receiving my Ph.D. from Howard University in May 2004. (I had been thinking of her all summer, revisiting our letters, which we planned to publish, and wondered why I was suddenly depressed. Something in the Universe was pulling at my heart, tugging me, but I did not know what. I did not know that it was Camille, God, and the Spirit of my ancestors trying to tell me that she was making her transition into the next life.)

I am glad that Camille finally received the book and card in time, before it was too late...I hope it reached her hands. And that she was proud to see it. Although I was hurt and deeply saddened to learn of the news regarding her passing (much too late), and truly do wish I could have been there for her during her most trying times as she courageously battled cancer, I know that our prayers and good faith continue to keep her Spirit (and "infectious" laughter) alive. I also know that time is not promised and none of us are promised tomorrow. 

Camille was/is a star in all of our lives. And she will continue to look on us lovingly and fondly from Heaven, where she has gone to become one of our Ancestor spirits. I only give thanks to Roy Conboy, chair of the Theater Arts Department at San Francisco State University, and all of the Theater Arts staff who allowed me to speak at her  memorial, which was held in the Drama Department at San Francisco State University October 30, 2003. I'm  glad I had a chance to make it back home for her memorial at the University. Camille would have liked and appreciated that. In fact, she did. For I heard her laughing in the audience as I read my speech. :)

Below is a poem I wrote for Camille while I was still a junior in college, studying under her apprenticeship at San Francisco State University. The weekend of her passing, I was going through some  of our old letters, and discovered this poem that I sent to her one summer, which was enclosed inside of a card. :) She thought it was "deeply moving" and touching, and said she shared it with her daughter, who liked it as well. :) And I am sure that anyone  who has ever had a mentor as beautiful, loving, graceful, kind, compassionate, and touching as Camille would, too.

"Mentor to Be"

(in loving memory of my mentor, Camille Cole Howard)

Mentors give backbones and breathe life into tired souls.

Mentors cherish secrets, take lids off dreams, and treat them as if they were worth more than gold.

Mentors must courage and tell what you already knew

But never had the faith to believe.

Mentors make you fall in love with life and are there when in need.

Mentors don't mind lifting as they climb.

They come into our lives for a reason and they are right on time.

Mentors are beautiful people who give birth to a new generation of leaders.

By far, they are God's little helpers and some of our greatest teachers.

But, most of all, mentors give you wings upon which to fly

And constantly remind us

That all things are possible if we simply give them a try!

copyright. Jamie Walker. 1996. All Rights Reserved. 

Haiku

(for Camille Cole Howard)

                                                                10-20-03

who holds the healers

after their tiny hands cup

immaculate grace

copyright. Jamie Walker. 2003. All Rights Reserved.

Haiku

(for Camille Cole Howard)

will you come to greet

me/when i too die/leaving

nothing/but a smile

copyright. Jamie Walker. 2005. All Rights Reserved.

A Star so beautiful as Camille's should never fade into oblivion...This is my attempt to memorialize her, to uphold her legacy and her name.

---Jamie Walker.

(M)e.

Please email me, if needed. Click Here to go to my website.

Copyright. Author Jamie Walker. 2004. All Rights Reserved.