I feel different these days. Still figuring out who I am now and how to rebuild myself after loss. In the middle of that, my dad and I realized how much we learn in moments like this and how rarely we share it. I wrote a guide on what actually goes into handling a death and why we need to talk about it sooner. Link in bio.
My sweet mama transitioned last Tuesday after living with ALS for nine years, and we laid her body to rest on Sunday.
The grief rises in waves larger than anything this caption can carry. I wrote my way through the fullness of it on Substack, and the link is in my bio. I am grateful I chose her, and grateful I got to love her in this life and whatever waits beyond it.
To my community, thank you for holding me with such tender care. The flowers, the meals, the check ins, the offerings, the money, the prayers, the love, the love, the love.
I am steady because of the love.
We built something that required all of us to show up differently, and I held the room while it came to life.
On the Other Side.
Written by Stephanie Pacheco. Directed by Andrea Ambam. Produced by me, Dria Brown, Creative Doula and Artistic Producing Director at Broadway Advocacy Coalition.
This piece asked big questions about punishment, about what we do with harm, about the weight of systems that choose control over care. And somewhere along the way, the process started to reflect the very world we were interrogating. The same frictions, the same hierarchies, the same exhaustion that so often live inside the work of justice and art alike.
But instead of collapsing under it, we practiced something different.
We slowed down. We named what was hard. We listened.
We chose empathy, not as performance, but as practice.
We held each other through it, and in that, became the thing the play was reaching for.
Nine months of Creative Doula work, tending to the vision, the people, and the process.
Stephanie’s writing was fearless, precise, and unflinching in its truth. Andrea guided with rigor and heart. And our cast, crew, and BAC team met every challenge with courage, creativity, and care.
📸 @treybabee
(officially open again for producing YOUR work)
I want y’all to take a moment to SCREAM a very Happy Birthday to my Fiancé 😝—my lover, my bestie, my partna, my Poly Pocket 😏. Loving you has brought me closer to my truest form. Choosing you is a daily act of resistance in such a violent capitalist world. Seeing you each day is a reminder that my existence will never go unwitnessed. Being in your presence through all of life’s twists and turns has brought so much joy to the “process.” And you letting me love you is the greatest role I’ll ever book.
You are one of the rarest stones, and rare stones demand work, care, patience (and yes, they’re hella expensive 😂). So call me a gemologist—because I’ll be studying you, cherishing you, and learning you for as long as I live 💜
HAPPY BIRTHDAY @dria.brown 😏
#HappyBirthday #fyp #BlackLove #DontplayAboutIt
“Praise,” written and voiced by Stephanie Pacheco—BAC Artivism Fellow and National Youth Poet Laureate—is a meditation on survival, sacredness, and the inner wisdom that guides us.
Filmed during the Artivism Fellowship Writers’ Retreat at Space on Ryder Farm, this visual poem is an offering to black femmes and a reminder of the power of creative ritual.
About the Fellowship: BAC’s Artivism Fellowship supports artists at the intersection of storytelling, advocacy, and systems change. Fellows use their creative practices to reimagine justice, build community, and shift narratives in the criminal legal system and beyond.
✍🏽 Written + Performed by @thestephaniepacheco
🧑🏽🎨🪄Creative Direction by @somaawinaa
🎥 Filmed + Featured: @thestephaniepacheco@dria.brown@somaawinaa #leiasquillace @indigosparks_@andreaambam
✂️ Edited by @jah_car_rah
🌐 On Location @spaceonryderfarm
📲 Follow us @bwayadvocacycoalition
