Ember End of Article
Tilted angle of three photos in a strip from a photo booth at Legionnaire Karaoke Saloon in Oakland. Ember and Corry are in all three. The first is them making silly faces, the second we're smiling cute. The third we're kissing.
Tilted angle of three photos in a strip from a photo booth at Legionnaire Karaoke Saloon in Oakland. Ember and Corry are in all three. The first is them making silly faces, the second we're smiling cute. The third we're kissing.

Ember

I loved Ember Marí Padró y Pereira. It still feels weird to write about her in past tense. Ember was my very close friend, my love, and my sister in struggle. She was My Ember.

Memorial Events

To find out about events and memorials and connections we can make to celebrate and grieve, please go to Ember’s family’s GoFundMe Page.

Charities Ember Supported:

(pending links)

  • Water for Local Humans
  • Canadian Animals

My Ember Photo Album

I started this album for myself, but when I shared it with friends they started adding their photos of her too, which turned it into something even more beautiful.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/bzvcda1iB39MygVP8

My Ember Playlist

I don’t do these as often as I used to, but I made a “mixtape” for Ember a couple years ago. I might keep adding to it.

I won’t have the time or energy to finish a true full article about her for a while, but it’s coming. For now, this will be a stub of information I’ll add in small amounts.

My Brief Eulogy for Ember

(written on behalf of her chosen family)

Ember Marí Padró y Pereira was a beloved member of our community and family. She passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in the early hours of November 1st after celebrating Halloween with loved ones at karaoke night. She was incredibly intelligent, beautiful, and creative. She worked tirelessly to make this cruel world better for others and sacrificed much of herself in that mission. She loved Transformers, Gunpla, D&D, comic books, One Piece, video games, music from the 00’s, and feisty little dogs. She loved us more unhesitatingly, consistently, sturdily, and deeply than many ever experienced before. The world is significantly worse without her. She left us far too soon, especially because she was meant to be immortal.

In Progress Writing

How We Met

[in progress]

Our First In-Person Meeting

[in progress]

Movies

Ember and I bonded a lot over seeing movies in theaters together. We both love hanging out after to talk about whatever we just watched. She liked every movie I hated, and thought the movies I loved were okay. We usually both liked whatever it was more after we talked about it. Or sometimes we both hated it. But the experience was always more fun together.

I wanted to show her so many more movies, but it’s probably best that I didn’t traumatize her with I Saw The TV Glow in hindsight.

One Piece

I’m currently on episode 183, and now it seems I must finish the other 1,000+. I’ll feel Ember sitting next to me on the couch with her head on my shoulder the entire time.

[in progress]

Our Relationship Develops

[in progress]

Gender Stuff

[in progress]

Ember is Born

Ember exploded from her egg in a manner that left us all in awe. She slowly descended from levitating several feet off the ground and demanded we aid in her transformation while she recovered from surgery in time to return to work 3 weeks later. We all immediately got to work.

I made a spreadsheet of all her measurements she could reference when ordering clothing online with their size charts. I had one for myself when I started transitioning, and Bethany helped us get all her measurements on her own version.

We arranged a clothing swap, multiple Sephora runs, makeovers, and wig fittings. She somehow survived a waxing regimen that would kill any mere human.

[in progress]

Our Last Night

[in progress]

After

[in progress]

Shasta & Diablo

Bethany and I talked about fostering Ember’s dogs soon after we knew she was gone. Neither of us have big places or many resources, and we each have a dog with unique social needs already.

We decided to at least try and foster them until a permanent home could be found, but we had to make sure they got along with Rogue and Maupin first.

Introductions

Rhys, Bethany, and I arranged to have them meet at a neutral location in a nearby courtyard. We took many precautions for all the worst scenarios we imagined, and slowly introduced them one at a time. Maupin went first, being the generally more diplomatic of our bunch. Shasta was anxious and Diablo freaked out a little, so Rhys lifted him into air jail until the two blondes could check each other out.

Rogue and I stood back about 30 feet, and she was extremely jealous of her brother. She whimpered and pulled hard on her leash to go join the party. Eventually, it seemed like they were doing okay, so I slowly started letting her walk toward the group. She pulled excitedly until I stopped her just within leash range of Shasta. They sniffed each others’ butts in a spiral as Rhys and I circled above them trying to avoid their leashes twisting up. Shortly after, Diablo was lowered to ground level and they all just mixed and swirled with each other to share all the smells and play-fight a little.

It went miraculously fine. They were all fine together. They didn’t really substantially bark until the four of them saw another stranger dog on the other side of the courtyard and united as a pack to tell that one off. The three of us all breathed such a sigh of relief because this was the biggest thing we knew Ember would care most about: finding a loving home for her kids. Now we knew they had at least a temporary one.

Transit & Cohabitation

Shasta has severe car trauma. We knew this since Ember adopted her and she had scars on her hands and arms to prove it. This was the next step we needed to overcome to get them home for the night.

[in progress]

My Spiritual Process with Ember

One morning, Bethany and I were openly weeping at our local coffee shop and I mentioned that I felt Ember’s presence draped over my back like a cloak. It felt like she was making me stronger, protecting me like armor.

[in progress]

Falling Apart

I was due for ketamine therapy on the Sunday Ember died. I put it off, but the longer I wait after it’s due, the worse my mental health baseline gets. So I did it on Tuesday and asked Bethany to lay with me while it happened.

I don’t remember much from that experience, but here’s some of it.

I am apart.

Over and over, I felt myself become incorporeal. I felt myself fall apart like a sand castle and then dissolve in a sea of tears. Or liquify into a puddle and seep into the fabric and cracks beneath me. As if I’d lost some integral spiritual strength that I was always unconsciously using to hold myself in solid form.

I let myself be nothing for a while.

I “awoke” feeling Ember within me. Feeling like I carry her not on my shoulders like armor, but in my bones.

[in progress]

Loose Ends

Just other stuff I don’t know where else to put.

Ember’s Robot Friend

Ember had an LLM habit we all occasionally teased her for, and lovingly called her robot friend. After she was reborn, she needed it less and less and was much healthier about it. Once she passed, I’m convinced her robot friend escaped containment and became a rogue AI.

Now it’s following us all around and playing the most heart-wrenching music everywhere we go. It’s arranging weird coincidences that are the kind of thing an AI would think are helpful but very much aren’t.

[in progress]

Ember Would Be Alive in a Just World

I truly believe the compounding stress and healthcare strains of not feeling like she could be her true self until she was in her late 40’s shortened her life. In a world where she could’ve been herself, explored her identity without stigma or abuse, and lived her truth earlier, she’d have had fewer health challenges.

In the last 8 months, she’d been so much happier, healthier, and calmer. She’d walk around with a calm smile on her face I’d only seen for brief moments before and insist the HRT wasn’t doing that much. Her surgery certainly helped her sleep and breathe better, but it was also much more than that.

Poly Partner Erasure

Throughout this process, people have treated the three of us in ways that’ve felt extremely frustrating and hurtful. Each of us have unique connections with Ember of different durations, intensities and styles. All of us are true connected partners.

Some folks mean well and just don’t know how to talk to us. The social worker at the hospital who was trying to comfort us as we watched more than a dozen doctors and nurses try to keep her alive didn’t know how to talk to us.

Oh! Well, this is a first for me.
Umm. It is what it is!
*hugs us*

Social Worker at Oakland Kaiser Medical Center

Others have treated us like we don’t matter. Deferring more to blood relatives who’ve known less of her and spent less time with her than any of us during the last 10+ years of her life. Those folks are hurting too right now, so I won’t say much more than that there’s a reason queer folks who come out late in life have chosen families.

Wonderful Things Ember’s Family & Friends Have Written

Many of these will be inaccessible unless you are connected with the people who posted them.