A few months ago, I received an email from a colleague and mentor. In the email, he did as he always does, asked how I was doing and putting me first. He was reaching out to see if I had a copy or information about an image that he planned to use or reference in an upcoming book. I saw the email but didn’t respond immediately, and whenever I thought about responding, in the days and weeks following, I was away from my phone or computer, so by the time I got back to my devices I had forgotten about it.

About a month or two passed, and one morning I woke up and thought, “I really need to email John back. He emailed me weeks ago, and I just haven’t done it.” That morning, when I was at the office, I got a text telling me that John Lowe had passed away over the weekend. He entered my thoughts that morning, as I realized I needed to reach out a reply to his message, but I couldn’t reply.

John’s passing made me think about a lot of things. It made me think about the ways that our brains work, this kind of premonition we have, even if we don’t know exactly what the premonition means. I remembered the summer my grandfather died. I knew his health was failing, but there was a specific moment, on my way home, that I thought, “He’s gone.”

I was driving home from South Louisiana and stopped near Alexandria, in the middle of the state, to get dinner. I walked into Burger King, ordered my meal, and sat down. While sitting there, I had a feeling and thought, “My grandfather has died.” This was before cell phones, so I couldn’t call anyone. When I got to my house, no one was there and I saw there was a message on the answering machine. The message was from my dad, and he told me what I already knew, that my grandfather passed that afternoon.

I don’t know, exactly, what to make of these moments. We can chalk them up to coincidence, but I can’t do that. It seems like there is more happening that I can’t explain. There is a connection, in some form, a presence that communicates with us at these moments. It isn’t quite déjà vu, but it has that feeling to me. It’s a feeling of knowing that it has happened and that my thoughts, somehow, are connected with it.

These were my initial thoughts on hearing about John’s passing in early August. Yesterday, I attended his memorial service where family, friends, colleagues, former students, and more gathered to remember him. As I sat there, listening to individuals speak about his friendship, his scholarly accomplishments, and his generosity, I thought about how we need more people like John in academia and the world. I thought about how he made everyone around him feel important, no matter who they were in the academic hierarchy or elsewhere.

Listening to these remembrances, I thought about Lillian Smith and the bridges she continually implored us to build between ourselves and others. I thought about the connections that bind us and link us. Yet, I didn’t think of the bridge as an apt metaphor for John’s impact on so many. Rather, I thought about a web, woven by John, connecting disparate points together with strands. I thought about myself as a part of that web, connected with John and with so many others that he had brought together in various fashions.

I recall him connecting me with individuals, always being open to linking me up with people who have impacted my life and research. I thought about the dedication he had to believe in me, when others may not have believed in me, and assist me in the job search by providing letters of recommendation. I thought about his willingness to let me include one of his essays on Frank Yerby’s The Golden Hawk in my collections Rediscovering Frank Yerby. I thought about all of this and much more.

Mainly, I thought about how outr paths crossed, over our work on Ernest Gaines. When Marcia Gaudet got up to speak, these confluences came together. Marcia and John connected through Ernie (as they refer to Gaines) as well, and Marcia mentioned that October 28, 2023, was the annual beautification of Mt. Zion Riverlake Plantation Cemetery, the beautification where I took my children for years while I lived in Lafayette and now, since 2018, where Ernie resides in the same plot of land as his Aunt Augesteen Jefferson and those who loved and wrote about.

The poignancy of this confluence, this merging of Ernie and John, far away from Oscar, Louisiana, all the way in Athens, Georgia, miles separating them, hit me because Ernie, John, Marcia, and so many others who were there highlighted the webs that bind us together, that stretch out from the center, allowing us to go on our paths yet also connecting us, no matter what path we pursue.

During the reception, I spoke with one of John’s colleagues, and he told me how John would always come to his office and just chat, something that I often do too with my own colleagues. As we chatted, I mentioned my name and how I had been wanting to meet the person, and he responded by telling me that John had mentioned me and my work in one of their conversations. This moment reminded me, again, of John’s ability to weave threads together, to mentor, to support, to encourage, and to lift up.

One of John’s graduate students talked about how much all of this meant to them. They said that they felt privileged to merely be a blip on such a large web, a particle amidst the many strands that hang the web from the rafters. This is how I felt sitting there, listening to those who spoke of John and his legacy. I realized, as I listened, the importance of weaving webs to others, connecting them, even if they are on disparate sides of the strands. This act creates strength, creates change, creates continuous legacies for the future.

I’m am thankful to know people who do the same thing that John does. I think about people like Walter Greason, John Jennings, and countless others who champion the work of others and mentor them, being more than an academic colleague. They are friends who reach out when something happens. Friends who you can text whenever, texts that lead to calls. They are all individuals I strive to be in my professional relationships because the work we do should bring all of us together, not cleave us in two.

When John passed, I posted on social media “Ciao Giovanni,” the signature that John would always put in his emails to me. I initially, years ago, viewed the signature as pretentious, but I came to revel in it. At the memorial, I came to realize it was personalized, for what reason I don’t know. Other people spoke of how he signed his emails to them with “Amore Giovanni” or something else. That personalization makes me, and so many others, feel like more than just a blip. It makes us feel important, seen, and respected. As a colleague, mentor, professor, or whatever, that is what we want to do for others.

John used the appellation Giovanni because of his love for opera and Italy. For me, it embodies much more that that. John is a one syllable name, constricted. Gio-van-ni stretches out to three syllables, expanding beyond the one syllable to encompass so much more. Remembering Giovanni, I remember how much he means to so many. He embraced so many. He contained, to borrow from Walt Whitman, he contained multitudes and he shared those multitudes with all of us.

You are not gone Giovanni, but at this moment, we must say ciao until we meet again. So, ciao Giovanni, until that time when we meet again in whatever fashion that may be.