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Radio station KEDA-AM broke the news of Adonis's death first. From there, the news traveled fast.
Mourners began arriving from all over. They drove, walked, and rode bicycles past our house on Bloomington Street, many stopping to create a shrine to Adonis in front of our chain-link fence with balloons, colored ribbons, stuffed animals, drawings, photographs, scribbled notes, flowers, and flags from all over. At one point the line of cars wrapped around five blocks. Adonis had been loved by everyone, from young children who loved to dance to "Maria Maria" to elderly reggae fans. Now they were pouring out their love and grief.
The studios in Virginia Beach and Hampton were transformed into shrines as well, and anguished fans held candlelight vigils around the country. Most of the cars in Virginia Beach drove with their headlights on. Fans also left notes and messages on the door of Room 158 of the Comfort Inn, where Adonis was killed.
Adonis's albums and cassettes rapidly disappeared from stores as Virginia radio stations played his music nonstop. Grieving fans phoned the radio stations to read poetry for Adonis and sometimes for me on air, and other Reggae artists shared their memories of him with the media. Mourners gathered in other cities around the world as well; in Los Angeles alone, four thousand people gathered at the Sports Arena Memorial to honor Adonis.
The mourners continued to stand outside our house for months after Adonis's death, sometimes even at night. They were in the street all of the time. It didn't matter. I didn't want to go out anyway.
The night before Adonis's funeral, we held a viewing for family and close friends at the funeral home. I hadn't yet seen Adonis's body. I sat in the front row maybe ten feet away from the casket, unable to look anywhere but at a spot on the floor maybe a foot in front of the pointy toe of my jet black heels. I felt sick to my stomach as the growing child inside of me moved around, reminding me even more that Adonis was really gone. I sat there with his family, just staring at that spot, feeling Adonis close but not able to look at him, much less approach the casket. I was paralyzed by grief.
"Come on, Selena," everyone urged me. "You need to say good-bye."
"No, I don't want to," I told them. "I can't see him like this."
Everything felt surreal, and the whole business at the funeral home, which was packed with people, with many more lined up outside all night to get inside, felt like a spectacle to me. I hadn't had any time alone with Adonis. Just him, me, and our child.
I was clutching the ring Adonis had bought for himself to go along with the one he got for me to celebrate our second wedding anniversary, the ring he'd hidden in my pillowcase in Bora Bora. I had it on one of my fingers and I kept twiddling it around in my hand. The ring was so big because of his large hands and crooked fingers, so it became a little distracting game for me.
