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I found Glee in 2010. Well, maybe Glee found me. I’d just moved to California knowing no one except for my roommate. The transition was what I wanted, but it was anything but easy. We had no friends here, no family, no transportation even. I walked three miles to work every day
and three miles home. Two queer kids who moved to California from small town Kansas were trying to just survive here. And we found Glee. For me, I found Santana. Britanna. I found Naya. I remember listening and watching to nothing but Glee and Naya for much of those first few
years here. I spent so much time wondering if this life would ever become what I dreamt it would be...and the only thing getting me through step by step each day was Naya’s work. I spent many long walks home just purely grateful that I could listen to one of her songs
or watch another clip I’d added to my iPod. I remember being so grateful that there was finally some representation of an lgbt couple on screen that made sense to me. Finally, there was a couple that looked like the world from which I came. There was a person onscreen
overcoming what everyone thought about her in order to live the life that made her happy with the person that made her happy. I began to see that world as a reality for myself. I think the most incredible part is that the storyline that came to mean so much to many of us
really began as a joke. (Not surprising considering the problematic scenarios of that world.) But Naya wanted more for us. We’re real people who deserved more and she helped give that to us. She was a daughter, a sister, a friend, a mother, a singer, and actress, and at the
root of it all: a person who cared. So many of us are feeling lost and broken and questioning how and why we feel so much for someone most of us never met. Her art mattered. It mattered to so many of us. Her desire to let us know that we mattered, our lives mattered...
that’s why. It’s why we feel so much for someone who gave so much to us in so many ways. Some people are sent to become beacons of light for those that need it. We needed it. She was it. I’m forever grateful for the beacon of light that was #NayaRivera.
I’ve tried for days to listen to Valerie. I did it tonight.
