. . . .You'll pardon me, dear readers, but this is one of two weeks of the year that I selfishly take for myself and pay some tribute. There is always one column a year dedicated to my Dad, and now one to my Mom, small effort though it is, to pay back the lifetime of love, effort and dedication that they put into me. This one will be up until Tuesday, and then it will be back into the regular efforts and look at the current scene.
. . . .On Monday October 19th, my Mom, Jane Loree Williams nee Holloway, will have been gone from this Earth a year, will have been on her long walk home on the other side for 365 days.
. . . .My Mom lived with absolutely incredible medical conditions for the last 5 years of her life. I defy anyone else to successfully live with; COPD, MRSA through her entire bloodstream, Kidney Cancer, leading to the removal of one kidney, Bladder Cancer, and elevated heart rate and cellulitis so severe that her skin was like parchment and constantly black and blue from burst blood vessels. You know what? She got up every day, the clothes came on just so, the hair was just right and the make-up and jewelry were just right. For a portion of that, her second husband, Jean, was going downhill with a series of TIA's, mini-strokes, that eventually took his life, and she took care of him as well.
. . . . When my Mom passed and my sister had to go to her closet to get her clothes, she found, at the back of the closet, where my Mom could see it every day when she got dressed a plaque with the Winston Churchill quotation on it: "Never, never, never give up".
. . . .That was my Mom
. . . .My Mom lived for her kids and grandkids, absolutely lived for them. As my sister has cleaned her house out this year, she found that my Mom had kept absolutely every card, every photo, every newspaper clipping, everything that over the years had concerned her kids and grandkids. She used to print my columns out, and had them in a file folder. She knew absolutely everything that her grandkids were involved in, and knew each detail of their lives and was infinitely proud of them.
. . . .That was my Mom
. . . .The evidence of her life, as my sister uncovers it in the cleaning out of the house, is that it was consistent, and not solely appearance, it had substance and was real. With my Mother what you saw was what you got, she acted, talked and walked as she believed.
. . . .My Mother was a woman of exquisite taste; in clothing, in jewelry, in furnishings, in color, in anything and everything. The smallest details were the most important, because it was in the collection of the details that the larger picture could emerge, and that picture was spectacular. My Mom could spot the greatest piece of furniture in a consignment shop, and wait for the price to become reasonable, and then swoop in, and snatch it up.
. . . .This woman of exquisite taste also had a will of steel and pulled no punches. I clearly remember that at my wedding, many years ago, she pulled Lee, my best man aside and in a very low voice, sweetly and firmly said to him "Don't fuck this up". Yup, she did, said it right there.
. . . .It is from her that I acquired my broad tastes in music, and her love of it you can hear in the playlist that accompanies this one. She loved music, dance, ice skating, baton twirling. She did not miss an episode of Dancing With The Stars, American Idol or America's Got Talent. She also did not miss an episode of The Girls Next Door on E either, and was a big, big Saturday Night Live fan and knew the game of football inside and out. She had broad, varied tastes, but always looked for that one thing, people willing to put themselves out there, and who wouldn't quit.
. . . .My Mother put countless hours in, year after year, traveling with my sister from competition to competition, from practice to practice, and it was her joy to do so, never a burden or an obligation. It didn't matter how tired, how late, how far or how long, she just did it, period.
. . . .Whatever I had going on, my Mom was there, always, without fail, like clockwork, supporting her kids. Didn't matter if it was football game, a wrestling match, a debate, a forensic competition, a play - didn't matter, she was there, and she was biased, her kids were always the best, and she was your biggest fan and backer but she also would give you an honest appraisal of how you'd done, and where you could improve.
. . . .When my sister had a week long National competition in Washington, D.C., there wasn't a question, given what city it was, I was going to go, at 12 years old. So, at 12 years old, on the way there, I got to explore Gettysburg, and she arranged it so that there was someone with me, if it couldn't be her, as I explored the Smithsonian, saw the White House, the Potomac, Congress and everything it had to offer.
. . . . . .It was my sister who, in cleaning out the house, found an old photo album, that is mainly full, chock full, of black and whites of my Mom with me, her first born. The album speaks of love and pride, and brought back a flood of memories, and when I received it, I sat in the middle of the floor and cried, seeing the love, care and pride that I had been raised with exhibited and preserved for eternity.
. . . .My Mom held a variety of jobs throughout her life. She helped my Dad when he owned his own contracting firm, was the lighting showroom manager of a wholesaler that I worked at, she was the High School Secretary for Comstock Schools (I couldn't get away with anything!), and she ran the local chapel for Langeland's funeral homes. It was the funeral home chapel that provided some of the best stories that she ever gave me. She would work a biker funeral any day, she felt that they were some of the best, most respectful, most helpful people she'd ever been around. She shuddered every time she had to work a funeral for a bunch of dirt trackers or hard core Nascar fans. She'd never been around a bunch of drunker, more rude people in her life. That particular bunch gave her one of the most enduring stories that we'd ever heard. She made the mistake, unknowingly, of seating the wife of the deceased on one side up front, and the girlfriend on the other side. When the end came, and the girlfriend tried to slip a 40 oz. of Bud in with the corpse, so he would have one for the road, all hell broke loose when the wife had enough and decided it was go time right then and there. Then there was the time that the embalmers and undertakers hadn't taken care of a broken shoulder in a corpse so well, and it was summer. During the day, (it was summer, and hot), the arm, as it was folded across the chest started to come loose from it's position. Now, think about it, as you've seen a body in a casket, and think about the trajectory of that arm as the elbow sank down. It appeared, every so often that the dearly departed was slowly waving from the casket. My Mom got creative with a stack of books under the elbow, propping it up and preventing the arm from waving. She explained to the family, that it was her understanding at least, that the deceased had wanted to take some books with him on his journey.
. . . .My mother was an old school Eisenhower Republican. Back when the Republican party was truly the Republican party, the party and President who enacted the first Civil Rights Act, established the National Highway System. She could not stomach, nor stand the clowns and buffoons that the conservatives and Republican party have become these days. Couldn't stand Palin, and the crop of "lunatics", (her words) and Fox News and it's pack of lies. She'd lived it, lived through all the eras and decades and knew the truth. I gained my political sensibilities from her. It was her experience with her medical conditions, and her first hand knowledge of her prescription drug prices and what she paid out of pocket, even with Medicare Part D, that drove her absolutely rock-solid opinion about the need for health care reform in this country and that it had to start with the pharmaceutical manufacturers cartel and price fixing.
. . . .New Orleans, the city I base out of for work, was a special place to my Mom. Dad had proposed to her there, when he was based in Biloxi at the Air Force base there and she'd come to visit him. I find it quite appropriate, and not at all odd that this close to the anniversary of her passing, I find myself working in the city for a couple of days, held up before jumping a helo and heading offshore. She loved New Orleans.
. . . .So, my life being what it is, sometimes things just happen. I was working in the city, and took a walk for dinner. Stopped by a club, that had someone playing that I wanted to see, ate dinner, and grabbed a cup of coffee to go sit over by the Mississippi, have a cigarette, and watch sunset before going back over for the show. So, when a certain red-headed stranger sat down beside me on the bench, and proceeded to roll his own smoke, and started the conversation with a pleasant "Nice night isn't it?", I didn't think it odd at all, and we proceeded to talk; about the road, about being away from family and the people we love, about not sleeping in your own bed, and how damn hard that gets the older you are. By the time the conversation was over, I'd made another new friend, and we walked back into the club, and I got to see and hear the show from what was, for me, an old and familiar spot, from up behind the sound board, sitting beside the sound man. (It's a really live room, he was glad I was there, I told him how to tweak his high mid-ranges to keep them from ringing). When Willie Nelson, my new friend, launched into "Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground" and dedicated it from the stage to my Mom for me, I cried, sobbed really, and this black wearing, tattooed, pierced hard guy really didn't care who saw it.
. . . .The grief catches me unexpectedly at times, creeping up on me, and weighing me down so heavily, I feel like I can't breathe.
. . . .Healing comes in unexpected places, forms and ways, if you're willing to let it. I think now I can finally begin to grieve, in the right way.
. . . . .In the end, at the end of her life, I was not the son I should have been, not the person that I'm capable of being. I was too self-involved with my own little crises, life and what not. I was too wrapped up in the drama of my divorce and the period right after, when in reality, it was trivial. All divorces are banal, trivial and mundane really, even your own, it just doesn't feel like it at the time. I let myself get caught up in that and live everyday with some real regrets about it. She died while I was offshore, and I will be forever grateful to the men and women who worked furiously that day to get me a helicopter in, Dave Perry, Bobby Westmoreland, and Blaise, the dispatcher, and Jimmy, the helo pilot who cooked up a solo flight to get me in and let me get a flight home. The funeral and services went by in a haze, and the impending holidays last year seem to me like they did not happen. I've come back to life through this year now, and am not willing to do anything other than live, and live fully, to be my son's biggest fan, to continue to have a broad and varied palette of taste in music, to continue in my crusades, in my beliefs.
. . . . . . I believe that I have her to thank for that.
. . . . . .And to do anything else would be a grave disservice to the way she lived her life.
. . . .Live every day out loud
. . . .I miss you Mom and Dad, a lot. Thanks for watching over me and us.
. . . .Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do. Seize the precious moments before they're ripped away from you. This rodeo is a one-way ticket and no one, absolutely no one gets out alive. There aren't a lot of second chances, and we don't get to dictate terms and circumstances of how the ticket gets punched. This is not a dress rehearsal, and the curtain's gone up, it's real and right now. It's not about yesterday or tomorrow. There's no game reset button. It's about right here, right now. This, what you're reading, what you're hearing, is the proof, the words, the sounds and the sights of someone who was raised right, was loved and cared for, and sent out into the world believing he could do something about it, about changing it, because his parents believed in him, and charged him with living his life that way. It's about someone changing his own life and his own world and not being afraid to put it out there. Your parents raised you the same way so what have you done for yourself lately and why are you waiting? Do it now and make them proud.
The Desolation Angel aka The Nomad aka Kip Richard Williams, son of Jane Loree Williams (Holloway) and Norman Richard Williams and proud of that.
from somewhere halfway to Heaven, and just a mile out of Hell
You know someone like me, there's still a few of us left. If we have to, we'll stand at the gates of Hell and hold the last train home for you.. . . . . .
[where: 29.52N, 91.57W]
[where: Chelsea, MI]
