You must know this about Q Williams.

Heat emanated from each a part of him. He enveloped all of us — singly and collectively — along with his complete physique and soul. He threw his arms round you and squeezed till you thought you won’t breathe once more for the enjoyment he gave you. However he embraced your sorrow and confusion with delicacy and utter tenderness.

He acknowledged shade, gender, and political persuasion keenly and sharply and with out blinking. However then he did what so few of us can do — he pushed by all of it. He pushed by human foible, political divide, financial strata, and distinction of opinion with ferocity. And he didn’t cease till he pulled us by it with him, as if rescuing us from a hearth — the hearth of our personal ignorance and smallness.

He painted one fingernail simply to be subversive. Once I talked about I used to be not sure what to put on to the Governor’s Inaugural Ball, he texted me: “Sister, we’re taking our pay bump and shopping for you a costume. Inform me you have been raised by a single mom with out saying you have been raised by a single mom, LOL.”

He renamed himself final yr to honor that single mom whom he revered and spoke of usually.

He and our colleague Jillian Gilchrest known as ourselves The Mod Squad. He was, after all, Linc Hayes — the sensible, cool Brother who helped the 2 white women be their bravest selves.

I’m tempted to say he would have made an incredible chair of the Labor Committee, however that’s not fairly proper. He was, in actual fact, an incredible Labor chair. His mark has already been felt. Employees all through the state will profit from the plans he was making as a result of we will cross these legal guidelines in his honor.

Quentin Williams had a shrieking, excessive and joyful snigger. It was oblivious to its personal quantity; practically hysterical, and it flew out of him usually, typically at unusual occasions. Then it will path off and get very low and quiet, nearly conspiratorial.

As a result of he was educated and steeped in finance, he was appalled by the unequal distribution of wealth and so was unabashedly and proudly a Progressive. Q didn’t stay lengthy sufficient to see Connecticut reform its tax construction, and now, that’s on us. 

Q plunged ahead each time a good suggestion struck him, which was usually, and he labored out the small print as wanted. His colleagues’ cell telephones are replete along with his textual content — “Extra data coming!” And it at all times did.

He at all times known as you again. I’ll wait a lifetime for his name, as a result of, proper now, I can’t see a approach by the world’s squalid human hearth with out him.

Christine Palm is State Consultant for the 36^th Meeting District comprising Chester, Deep River, Essex and Haddam. 

Learn extra: Rep. Quentin Williams presumed sufferer of wrong-way driver