Adios, Claire Bear

Jul 20, 2024

A rare selfie from Claire. Posted to Facebook.

My only sibling Claire Duggan died last week, and the family is hollowed out. Please forgive me if you knew Claire and this is how you’re finding out. The stretch of road behind me is bumpy, and I did my best to try and reach out to everyone. I’m sure I left out important folks that loved her, and I know you’ll forgive me.

My sister was whip smart, a wonderful photographer, a loving mother and a very skilled debater. In fact, it’s unclear if I ever won an argument with her, and that was before she graduated one of the finest law schools in the country, George Washington University Law School.

She laughed big, argued loud, and had the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. That blessing would also be a curse for her.

For a long time she’d been self-medicating an imbalance, and it lead to addiction. Needless to say, I did not win any of our debates on this matter. At times, this disagreement lead to a gulf as wide as the one between our homes in Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Another regret for the pile.

One of my sister’s addictions was to social media, and our “debate” on the subject would change both our lives. My conflict with her lead me to delete both my personal and professional Facebook pages. I retained some others for purposes of promoting my work, but I felt my wife and son should have agency to make their own choices about being online without being dragged along with me. My thoughts on the matter directly lead to my collaboration on ANALOG with David O’Sullivan at Image Comics. It’s possibly the most hopeful of my collaborations? I didn’t tell her she had helped me shape something that was so important to me. What’s one more regret?

In the aftermath of her death it’s as though every piece of wreckage in this debris field has a cracked rearview mirror on it. I ask “What If…” for a living, and now my free time is spent mulling over that same question in life. I’m not used to losing, and doing so in a matter as important as this has been a humbling experience. My cousins, and my family have been rocks. Especially grateful to my cousin Kathy and her husband David. I have a good support system.

I don’t want Claire’s life to be defined by her death or by her illnesses, and I also know my sister well enough that she would bristle if I were the one to attempt to write her legacy.

That task will be a group effort. I suspect some of these groups may not have much, if any, areas of overlap except for my sister’s presence in their lives.

She loved my parents, and her extended families in Ridgewood, D.C., GWU and beyond. I think it’s appropriate that eventually they have the final word on her too-brief time on Earth.

It’s a tragedy when anyone dies at only 48, but Claire leaves behind such a young family. She loved them tremendously. Three children, her dog, and her partner, Dewayne. She loved her neighbors and their children and she loved her neighborhood. She took Sonia to the Black Lives Matter marches, and was always trying to help folks in her neighborhood. She really loved DC.

When Comedians Of Comedy rolled through DC in 2004 or 2005 my sister piled a few of us into her Jeep and took us around to the monuments at night. “The best time to see them” she promised, and she was right. She took a lovely photograph of us that night at the Lincoln Memorial.

How does twenty years pass in the blink of an eye? At least Abe still looks great.

These are a few more of her favorites:

She was GW’s first official photographer, and a treasure trove of photos that will be shared in the weeks and months to come. I have a FUCKING HILARIOUS story to share of a sitting Supreme Court Justice and my sister. I think Claire would appreciate me trying to shine a light on her photography, and that will be no small task given that we have photos that need to be scanned in multiple places across the country.

It’s my hope that the GW School Paper The Hatchet might also be able to turn up some of her bangers. Unfortunately, as the internet ages the architecture crumbles. Many of her photos that used to accompany articles seemed to have fallen off the current version of their website.

The family has been inundated with loving remembrances and offers of assistance, we’ll let you know when a trust for the children will be created at a later date.

If you’re a friend who has photos that Claire shot for you - we’d love to see them, so please be in touch. We’d love to see them and share with the people that she loved. After we catch our breath it’s looking like there will be a memorial in DC and one in NJ.