5 Years After George Floyd's Murder, His Sister Still Visits His Grave to Sing: 'I Lost My Best Friend'

Every 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.

Related Stories

George Floyd’s Sister Says She Forgives Killer, Despite Lack of Apology

George Floyd’s Sister Says Brother Was ‘Best Friend’

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 25^th 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 25^th 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.”

To help combat systemic racism, consider learning from or donating to these organizations:

• Campaign Zero (joincampaignzero.org) which works to end police brutality in America through research-proven strategies.
• ColorofChange.org works to make the government more responsive to racial disparities.
• National Cares Mentoring Movement (caresmentoring.org) provides social and academic support to help Black youth succeed in college and beyond.