25-05-2025
5 Years After George Floyd's Murder, His Sister Still Visits His Grave to Sing: 'I Lost My Best Friend'
George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin five years ago
Chauvin is now imprisoned after being convicted of murder and federal charges of violating Floyd's civil rights, among other counts
Floyd's murder sparked a nationwide reckoning over police brutality and systemic racismEvery year on the anniversary of George Floyd's death, his sister LaTonya goes to his grave and sings REO Speedwagon's 'I'll Keep on Loving You.'
'I lost my best friend,' she says. 'I love him so much.'
She regularly visits the statue of her brother 'Conversations with George' in Houston's Tom Bass Park. She sits beside the statue, talking to her brother and praying with him.
Every day, she misses him.
"It seems like it should get better, but it hurts more and more every time," she says.
Around the third anniversary of her brother's murder, she told PEOPLE she forgave his killer, Derek Chauvin.
'I was losing my mind,' she says now, about the burden of her feelings toward Chauvin. 'I was going nowhere fast. All the money in the world couldn't get me peace of mind, my sanity. I talked to my pastor. He said, 'When you're ready, do the right thing. And you know what the right thing is.'
"I said, 'If God didn't forgive us, there would be no world. There would be nothing but dust.' I have to forgive to be forgiven. I had to. That was on my heart. If I could tell [Chauvin] in person, I would.'
'It hurt, but I had to do it,' LaTonya says.
LaTonya has written a song to her brother. She's currently trying to find an artist to sing it who can convey all of its emotions. She loves to sing, but she can't record the song herself, she says.
'I couldn't make it through,' she says. 'I lost my best friend.'
She sings:
I wish there wasn't a 25th in May.
On the days that we used to laugh and pray
Holding hands at night, we pray
About how I wish there wasn't a 25th in May.
"I tell him how we laughed together, how we sang together, how I'm going to keep on loving you,' she says. 'All the fun stuff that family does, that they're supposed to do, and we're never going to be able to do again.'
Read the original article on People
