Roxanna's boyfriend came over to her house Monday. There was shouting. There were weapons. Roxanna's roommate called 911 and dispatch reported the sounds of a struggle. By the time SPD showed up the boyfriend was gone. Roxanna had been murdered in front of her 12-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter. SPD later responded to a call from the Arboretum, where they found the boyfriend with a gunshot wound. Fucker tried to off himself but couldn't.

Her Facebook page is full of people asking "can someone PM me? Is Roxanna okay? What happened" because she was a club regular and we all know each other going back 25 fucking years and even if you don't get out much you still know everyone from everywhere back when and she's got 1700 facebook friends and am I going to be the one to tell you Roxanna's dead? Somebody should be but who knows what her parents know? And I probably know you but maybe I don't? And what's my place in all this anyway my most direct connection is I rated a phone call rather than wondering what the fuck happened aloud on her Facebook wall and I don't know who gets to make that decision? But I know it isn't me.

I hadn't seen Roxanna in a year. She wasn't a close friend but I'll be expected to attend the funeral. Which will be on Zoom now? I guess a friend of mine is putting together a GoFundMe for her kids, which is ironic because that friend backed out of going to her wedding. Roxanna couldn't believe that I was still coming down to Oakland to shoot her wedding even when my friends were the biggest jerks she knew.

I have a picture of Roxanna pinning a boutonniere on her dad's lapel. She's in a wedding dress, she's totally concentrated, and he's got this look. He's giving his baby away, she's all grown up. He couldn't talk for about fifteen minutes after. And it was just her, him, and the photographer, sharing this moment. It was profound, and although I've shot more than my fair share of weddings, I've never seen parental love condensed like that. I don't think many people are privileged to see that sort of exchange very often. I think it's one of the reasons my wife delivers babies. We spend so little time that close to the mystic.

They didn't throw rice, they gave out these little triangles with Monarch butterflies in them. The idea was they walk out of the church and you let the butterflies go and they fly into the air and it's beautiful. Except it was a foggy evening in Oakland in early June so everyone opened their butterfly triangles and the butterflies dutifully flapped their wings like six times and landed on you, where they hung out, wondering what the fuck they were doing in Oakland. I have a shot of the groom with like eight butterflies in his hair. I guess he's mostly out of the picture for reasons having to do with the kids. It's not a question you ask. I know his best man was his ex-boyfriend so it could be something as simple and mundane as heterosexual monogamy being a bad fit. I like to think so.

I was down there for four days, sleeping on the couch and documenting all the prep. It was a catholic-bahai ceremony and they held it at sunset in the open in the fog which meant I was largely focused on trying not to show my ass. I knew they were going to Bali for a honeymoon and then 200 people got blown up by fucking al Qaeda.

One of those days I had time to take the BART in to see the SFMOMA. I stared at a Yves Klein for 20 minutes, the first time I'd ever truly understood modern art.

Tears in fucking rain.