Two Decades After Her Death, Rita Hester’s Family Reflects On Her Spirit

Sister Diana Hester and mother Kathleen Hester look as nephew Taufiqul Chowdhury shows a photograph of Rita Hester as they reminisce about her. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Sometimes, Taufiq Chowdhury wonders what his life would’ve been like if his aunt were still alive. Rita Hester used to visit him in Hartford with gifts for the whole family. She took him to see “Beauty and the Beast on Ice.” She showed him how to savor a good plate of mussels. She showed him how to live freely.

“I remember being young and he would always tell me I would go to Boston University and I would stay at his apartment,” Chowdhury, 30, said. “He had this whole vision for me.”

Though Hester lived much of her adult life as a woman, her family still uses masculine pronouns, attempting to preserve a part of her that died long before she did. Rita loved them and she tried her best to teach them about her gender identity. She was bold. She didn’t care what the world thought. She knew who she was long before anyone else.

“I can remember him telling me to call him Rita. Or Rita Garbo…It was a long time ago, but nonetheless, I mean, my family loved him,” he said. “You know what I mean? And with every breath, you know, he was a big part of our family. And just his spirit, his energy was always better to have him around than not around.”

Read the rest of this story at WBUR’s website.