We want to tell you about Orlando Gene Romero, Jr., a dear friend to us and many others. Orlando would have turned 49 next week.
Orlando died on August 2, apparently of complications related to COVID-19, according to CDCR news release. A coroner will determine the exact cause of death.
During his childhood, Orlando was seriously neglected and horribly abused, physically and emotionally, by his mother, after his abusive father left the home. He blames no one else, however, for his criminal involvement while self-medicating with drugs and alcohol when he was 20.
Orlando had been incarcerated for 28 years, most of them here at San Quentin, on death row.
He was not the same person who went in.
There is only time to tell you a little about him. He taught himself to paint here, with a friend sending him money for supplies. Now his skill and depth of imagination impress artistic sophisticates. He has generously sent many paintings to the friends he has made on the outside.
In more recent years he has been teaching painting to others on the row, often sharing supplies with them. Especially during lockdowns, they would line up to show him what they’d done. “It’s important,” he said before he got sick, “to keep the men busy when they’re scared about COVID-19, and I have some extra supplies.”
Orlando also did what he could to defend gay incarcerated individuals from violence. He sent out two large paintings, one for each of two organizations supporting gay incarcerated individuals, so they could use those for their cause. So he is a force for good inside and outside. Long-time activist and spiritual teacher Joanna Macy, who provided much of the material in this letter, adds, “and he has been a force for good in my own life.”
Joanna, who has come to know him well over the last several years, considers him one of the most free people I have come across,” especially in his ability to extend love.
Orlando was in an outside hospital, on a ventilator for over two weeks. Though healthy and strong before the state’s seeing prisoners as expendable led to the epidemic inside here, his survival was uncertain because of extreme damage to both lungs. This is probably a partial result of delays in diagnosis and treatment due to the chaos as the disease spread here.
Orlando died on August 2, apparently of complications related to COVID-19, according to CDCR news release. A coroner will determine the exact cause of death.
By Joanna Macy and Michael Goldstein
