Esaw Snipes-Garner didn’t choose to be an activist—but like so many Black women forced into the role by unspeakable loss, she became one anyway. The widow of Eric Garner, whose 2014 death at the hands of an NYPD officer sparked a national uprising and gave voice to the phrase “I can’t breathe,” has passed away at the age of 58.

The news was confirmed by Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, which cited complications from ongoing health issues. “Tragedy can beget tragedy,” said NAN’s Dominique Sharpton, “and she weathered more than any single person ever should have to.”

Snipes-Garner’s life was forever altered when her husband, a 43-year-old father of six, was taken down by police officers in Staten Island for allegedly selling loose cigarettes. One officer, Daniel Pantaleo, placed Garner in a banned chokehold as bystanders recorded the scene. The video captured Garner repeating, “I can’t breathe,” eleven times before losing consciousness. His death was ruled a homicide. Despite national outrage and years of protest, Pantaleo was never criminally charged.

But to Esaw, Eric Garner wasn’t just a hashtag or a headline. He was the funny, brilliant, math-loving New Yorker she met on an old-school phone chat line back in the late ’80s. “He lied and said he was older,” she once joked in a BET interview. “We talked on the phone for days… we became a couple.” Married in 1989, they raised six kids together, blending families and building a life full of love, laughter, and everyday Black joy—even if they were separated at the time of his death.