Today is the birthday of my childhood friend Phyllis.
It's the second one since she passed away in August 2010.
I still miss her, as so many others do, but the pain has been receding for me since this day last year. I guess I was more melancholy then. I think I'm doing better now. It was, after all, barely two months since my friend had died. I was still grieving.
I think of Phyllis nearly every day — which is the most I can truthfully say about almost everyone I have lost except my mother (I think of her every day) — and, on this day, I kind of feel the way a mutual friend of ours apparently does.
On Facebook earlier today, he posted this:
"I miss you so freakin' much. Got that clock fixed you and Hawk gave me. I still laugh when I am able ..."
That, as I have mentioned before, may be the most enduring memory I have of Phyllis — the laughter. Even at the most somber points of my life, she could make me laugh.
And she would join in with a laugh of her own that made you feel warm all over like hot chocolate on a bitter winter day.
There must be others on this planet who can make you feel that way, but, if there are, I doubt that I will ever meet them. I do not expect to have that kind of laughter in my life again.
Phyllis was a laughter enabler. She could coax it from you, whether you wanted it to be coaxed or not.
It was just one of her many talents.
I, too, still laugh when I am able. I'm just not able as often as I once was.
"I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places That this heart of mine embraces all day through In that small café, the park across the way The children's carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well
"I'll be seeing you in every lovely summer's day In everything that's light and gay I'll always think of you that way I'll find you in the mornin' sun And when the night is new I'll be looking at the moon But I'll be seeing you."
It's been a year now, and there are times when I still can't get my mind completely around it.
We met in sixth grade. We lost touch at times — as even the best of friends will do — and we didn't always see eye to eye on things — again, as even the best of friends do — but we were always friends. That never changed, and we will continue to be friends until I draw my last breath.
You see, death (or so I have heard it said) does not mean the end of a friendship. At least, until both of the friends are no more. I'm glad I still have the memories I have. As long as those memories exist, so does Phyllis.
When I die, if there is an afterlife, I suppose Phyllis and I will pick up where we left off. Under those conditions, I guess, time and space will no longer be barriers.
The existence of the afterlife is really a separate discussion, though, and I am not as confident of it as I once was. I will discuss it with anyone who wants to discuss it, and I will listen respectfully to anything that anyone has to say on the subject — but not today.
Today, my thoughts are of Phyllis and how much I have missed her these last 12 months.
I have written about Phyllis on several occasions, in this blog and in the others that I write. I never know when — or why — I may be reminded of her, inspired by her. I only know that I am.
And I want others to know that she has inspired me. That's why I put these thoughts out here.
If I die unexpectedly, these writings will be here indefinitely, I suppose. If people stumble onto something I have written about Phyllis — or anyone else — it may be nothing more than a digital "Kilroy Was Here" to most.
But, in truth, it is my way of saying that I was here — and so was Phyllis and so were all the other people about whom I have written and will continue to write.
Those people brought me great joy when they were alive, and I want them to be remembered.
And the best way to do that is to remember stories.
There are lots of stories I could tell about Phyllis. But, you know, one of the pleasures of telling the old stories is having the people who were part of those stories around to reminisce about them.
Phyllis has been gone for a year now so I haven't told those stories nearly as often as I would like.
Well, most of those stories probably wouldn't mean anything to anyone else, anyway, so maybe the appropriate thing to do on this first anniversary is to reflect on what I have learned — in the last year and in my life in general.
I've been thinking a lot about the things I always thought were true. I've noticed that, as the years have gone by, things aren't as black and white as I thought when I was a child and I was learning the rules — you know what I mean, the multiplication tables, learning to tie my shoes, driving on the right side of the road, looking both ways before crossing the street, etc. The basics.
The instructions I received when I was growing up resembled those science experiments that have been conducted in classrooms for generations. The outcomes of certain actions under certain circumstances were 100% predictable.
There's a lot more gray now. I find it hard, at times, to know exactly what meaning I am supposed to draw from things anymore.
Phyllis was single until about the last 10 years of her life, then she met a man who was more than 10 years older and married him. By her account and others', it was a strong relationship, made even stronger by their shared experience of her affliction with cancer.
Her husband, who goes by the name of "Hawk" (I have always suspected that is a nickname, not a given name, but Phyllis never told me and neither has anyone else), is a Methodist minister who serves a couple of small churches in the central Arkansas county where Phyllis and I grew up.
I've never met him, but, after Phyllis died, we became friends on Facebook, and I have followed his posts there and occasionally sent him e–mails offering him encouragement as he has recovered from Phyllis' loss. Usually, I've sent such messages to him around milestone dates — holidays, birthdays, that sort of thing — but sometimes for no other reason except that I was thinking about him, hoping he was all right.
I guess I sort of felt I owed it to Phyllis.
Lately, his recovery took a turn that took me by surprise — and I haven't known how to react to it.
If you aren't familiar with Facebook, people can choose to enter all kinds of personal information, including their relationship status. They aren't required to do that. It is simply an option.
Anyway, after Phyllis died, Hawk changed his status to widowed, and it remained that way until just recently, when he changed it to in a relationship.
I've had mixed feelings about that, feelings that are hard for me to put into words, much less to understand.
It isn't that I expected Hawk to erect some kind of shrine to Phyllis and be a monk for the rest of his life. I don't believe that is what Phyllis would have wanted. (Let me qualify that by saying that I have always felt a little uncomfortable about suggesting that I know — or, for that matter, that anyone knows — what a deceased person might or might not have thought.)
There really is no rational way to look at this as some kind of betrayal — and I don't.
At the same time, though, as I say, I'm not sure how I feel. I know how much of herself Phyllis invested in that relationship, and I suppose much of my feeling stems from my deep regret that she is gone. In this past year, I have often felt cheated, deprived of what should have been.
We should have been able to enjoy the pleasures that old friends enjoy in their old age. Those were things that should have been for Phyllis. She was entitled to those things, damn it. It isn't fair that it was all snatched away from her that way. I guess it still pains me to realize that they will never be.
There were times after Phyllis and I re–connected on Facebook when Hawk had to leave her for a few days or perhaps a week to attend some sort of ministerial conference. Phyllis posted daily countdowns until his return — then, on the day he was scheduled to return, she would post giddy, schoolgirlish messages about how "my sweet Hawk" would be walking through the door in a few hours.
That was a side of Phyllis I had never seen, not even when we were teenagers together back in Conway, Ark. Back then, I knew she had the typical "crushes" girls in that age range tend to have, but she was always more serious about everything else — her studies, her grades, her music.
It sort of rounded out Phyllis for me, I guess. And I knew — as I had always known — that her devotion to the people in her life was lasting and genuine and true.
I know Hawk wasn't unfaithful to her — and isn't being unfaithful to her now. And perhaps, when I have had more time to absorb this, I will know better how to feel about it.
Last summer, as you may recall, my practically lifelong friend Phyllis died. She had been living with cancer for a few years, but then she was stricken with pneumonia, and it was too much for her body to withstand.
A mutual friend of ours participated in the funeral planning. He returns to our hometown at the end of each semester to participate in commencement ceremonies at the university there, and Phyllis' death came very near the time when he would be doing that at the end of the summer session.
He spent a little more time there than normal last August, helping with the arrangements.
Anyway, he is back there now. He just arrived yesterday. The university will be holding its spring ceremonies this weekend, and he posted a notice on Facebook.
A friend informed him that a "Relay for Life" is being held in a nearby town in Phyllis' honor this weekend. I gathered from his response that he had already spoken to Phyllis' family and had been told about this event.
And it all clicked.
Of course. I've seen this before. I knew a couple of people who died of brain tumors when I was growing up, and, at some point, folks organized special events like this "Relay for Life" in their memories. Likewise, I knew some people who died of other diseases, and similar events were organized in their memories.
I suppose these events have — almost always — been intended to raise money for medical research. They also — almost always — become annual events and carry the deceased person's name.
It's a form of immortality, I suppose — I couldn't wish it for a better person even though I still wish, perhaps for selfish reasons, that she was still around.
And I'm glad her name will be remembered — even when the time comes when the people who remember her name have no memory of her.
It's been nearly a year since she died, but in that time, there have been many occasions when I have remembered things about Phyllis that I had forgotten — or, at least, haven't given a lot of thought in awhile.
She continues to influence me, at times to inspire me, in ways that neither of us ever could have dreamed when we were children in Conway, Ark.
Neither, I suppose, could we have imagined, when we saw fundraising events being named for people we had known, that one of us — and, who knows, perhaps even both of us — would be remembered in such a way, possibly long after our contemporaries have joined us.
I am glad she is being honored in this way, but I am sorry she didn't know just how many fish were caught in the wide net she cast during her life.
I guess that is the thing I find singularly sad about such tributes.
Yesterday, as I wrote in this blog, was the 16th anniversary of my mother's death. She was a first–grade teacher when she died in a flash flood — admired and mourned by many.
(She knew Phyllis when I was growing up, knew her pretty well, as I recall. Mom knew all of my friends, but some she knew better than others. We lived in the country, and she knew the kids with whom I played every day, of course, but Phyllis, like most of my classmates, lived within the city limits.
(Mom didn't see most of those friends as frequently. She was acquainted with the kids who attended our church — but Phyllis didn't belong to our church when I was growing up. Nevertheless, Mom and Phyllis gravitated to each other and became friends. I'm not sure how or when that occurred, but it did. I remember that, by the time I was in high school, I noticed Phyllis and Mom seeking each other out at school functions.)
Anyway, the last children Mom taught are old enough now to have children of their own. In a few years, they may be first–graders in the school where Mom taught for the last 12 years of her life.
Those children, obviously, never knew my mother. But they will almost surely know her name. Less than a year after she died, the school dedicated a garden on the school property to her memory.
I don't know what the garden is used for today, but the original intention, as I understood it, was for it to be a place for contemplation, for reflection, for storytelling. A sort of a "quiet place," you might say, and that, I think, would have suited Mom just fine.
It was not a playground for recess. The swings and the slides could be found on the other side of the building.
There was a sign that identified the garden and on it could be found my mother's name. Even if you only ever walked past it and never stopped, you were almost sure to absorb the name from reading the sign — in much the same way that some people who perform heroic deeds say they learned the procedures for CPR and the Heimlich maneuver by casually glancing at posters on breakroom walls.
I haven't been on those grounds in a long time, but I assume that garden is still there. If it is, I am glad that it stands as a monument to Mom.
At the same time, I have a hard time thinking of my mother as a name on a garden wall or Phyllis as the name of an annual fundraising event. They were flesh–and–blood people for me, people who continue to influence my thoughts, my life, my memories.
When I think of my mother, I don't think of the honors she received for her creative teaching techniques. I think of her dedication, of evenings I spent sitting with her at the dining room table, helping her grade papers so she would have some free time to watch TV or play with the cat.
And when I think of Phyllis, I remember laughs and moments we shared, some with other people, some with just us.
I'm sorry they're gone. I miss them every day.
And, when all is said and done, I am glad they are remembered by others.
My bedroom window faces west so I won't be able to see when the sun starts to peek out over the eastern horizon, but that hasn't begun yet. It is still dark in Dallas, Texas, where I have spent so many Christmas mornings in my life.
And I am thinking about the music I associate with Christmas. It isn't always what you might think. Sure, there are the usual associations with seasonal songs and grade–school shows, but there are other, more personal memories of music and Christmas that are on my mind.
Sorting out those memories seems to be the order of business for me this morning. Perhaps it points the way to inner peace, which seems to be a worthy goal on Christmas.
I can get just as misty as the next person when I hear certain traditional songs that bring back memories of Christmases past and friends and relatives who have been gone for many years.
It always astonishes me how empty you can feel when you can't celebrate a holiday like Christmas the way you always did, how much you miss what was and will never be again — and how helpless, how powerless you feel when things change that you didn't want to change.
Change is inevitable, of course. And I guess I'm feeling particularly vulnerable to it this year. Seems like a lot of people who were important in my life have died this year, more than usual. Yes, I know that happens with more frequency as we get older, but it still leaves me with an empty feeling.
Change need not be a bad thing. I've been without a full–time job for more than two years now, and I guess I have been a little impatient waiting for the next chapter in my life to begin. As far as I'm concerned, that's one change that has been too long in coming.
Still, though, I can understand the resistance to change.
I grew up in Arkansas, but my grandparents and most of my parents' closest friends always lived right here in Dallas. My father was a college professor so he had time off at Christmas and we usually came to Dallas to spend the holidays.
I guess Christmas is always a magical time for children, but it was an especially magical time for me, and coming to my grandparents' home was always magical.
There were times when — for reasons I have forgotten or never knew — we didn't leave for Dallas until Christmas morning. In those days, we would have our family Christmas, then we would load up the car with our belongings and the gifts for the grandparents and friends and depart on the drive to Dallas, which usually took about seven hours in those pre–interstate days.
My memories of Christmas morning in those days are of waking up early and remaining in bed, impatiently waiting for the rest of the family to get up.
Like most children, I guess, I anticipated the presents that Christmas morning would bring, but I was excited, too, by the idea of simply being in Dallas later that day, in my grandparents' home. That was always an adventure for me, and there were always things to look forward to — the brownies in my grandmother's cookie jar, the softness of the beds in her home, trips to the park on pleasant days (and there were many of them in Dallas at Christmas when I was growing up), the familiar sights and sounds that I always associated with Dallas, whether it was Christmas or the Fourth of July.
When I think of music and Christmas morning, I can't help remembering a Christmas when I was still small. How small? I don't know. It's a vague memory, but I was young enough that I was still crawling into my parents' bed in the predawn hours and snuggling next to my mother. I guess I was 4 or 5.
On that particular Christmas Eve, my father set the alarm clock so we would all get up early enough to pack the car and get on the road, but he set it on radio and not alarm so, when the appointed time arrived, we were awakened to the sound of Christmas music playing on the radio.
The three of us lay there in the dark for several minutes, listening to the music before we got out of bed and began getting ready for the trip. I can't recall the tunes that were played — I think "Oh, Tannenbaum" was one of them, but that may be the intrusion of another memory because that was one of Mom's favorites.
Most of the time when I was growing up, we were in Dallas several days before Christmas.
But I still found myself waking before sunrise and waiting for the others to get up.
I remember a Christmas one year in the 1970s. I had gotten a portable radio for my birthday the month before, and I lay in bed listening to that radio via the earphone that came with it.
It was very dark in the bedroom, the way it is now, not even the faintest traces of dawn's earliest light could be seen peeking through the curtains, and I remember hearing, for the very first time, the song "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers. I think it had been released maybe a month before, but I hadn't heard it.
If I had heard it, I'm sure I would have remembered it. I was a Doobie Brothers fan in those days, and the song, with its bluegrass and Cajun influences, was so different from anything they had recorded before.
And yet I found it oddly familiar — and appealing.
Its message had little, if anything, to do with Christmas, but it had special relevance for me. After Christmas, my family planned to drive to New Orleans for a few days. We would be in the heart of Cajun country, where we probably would hear music that was similar to that — and, in fact, we did.
I remember humming that song all that Christmas morning while we did our family Christmas thing, then when we bundled up and drove to the retirement home where my father's mother was living. I didn't hum "Black Water" as we walked through the rather bland, antiseptic halls to my grandmother's room, but the song was playing on an endless loop in my head.
Not exactly "White Christmas," but, even today, when I hear "Black Water," I remember that Christmas morning.
Christmas always reminds me, too, of my mother, as I have written here before. It has never come close to being the same for me since she died.
I've been thinking of one Christmas in particular. I couldn't say what year it was, but it was when I was still living in Little Rock and vinyl LPs were still being sold so it must have been in the 1980s.
One of my closest friends was working as a clerk in a record store, and I told him I was looking for a record to give Mom for Christmas.
Mom was always very musical, and she was fond of performers like Simon and Garfunkel, Don McLean, John Denver, but I wanted to get her something I didn't think she had heard.
My friend suggested a collection of winter–oriented instrumental classical music from Windham Hill that featured a variety of artists like George Winston. I went by the store one night when he was there, and he played some of the album for me. I was impressed and bought it on the spot.
On Christmas morning, I remember sitting on the floor next to Mom when she opened my gift. She wanted to hear it right away, and it provided the perfect backdrop for a family Christmas. For the rest of her life, Mom frequently played that album on Christmas.
Christmas truly was Mom's time of year, just as it was for an old friend of mine, Phyllis, who died earlier this year. I don't think Phyllis and I ever spent a Christmas together, but we did see each other during the holidays.
And I always knew, even if I didn't see first hand, how much Christmas meant to her.
So this year especially, my thoughts are of Phyllis. And, indirectly, that, too, reminds me of some music that makes me think of Christmas.
Phyllis, as I have mentioned before, was a dedicated Christian. She changed Protestant denominations during her life, but, as far as I know, she always believed in God and Jesus.
She was also a talented musician. She loved all kinds of music. Well, I don't know how she felt about rap, but I think she liked just about every other kind of music.
About a year or two before we met, a rock opera called "Jesus Christ Superstar" was doing something that organized religion was failing to do — bring young people into the flock.
Phyllis and I never discussed "Jesus Christ Superstar." But I think she approved of any music that inspired people to seek God.
Anyway, I remember one Christmas when my parents gave me a small package, small enough to fit in my hand. When I opened it, it turned out to be a homemade cassette recording of "Jesus Christ Superstar."
My father was a religion professor at a small liberal arts college in my hometown. As I recall, there was one copy of "Jesus Christ Superstar," a two–record set packaged in a special box (rare for that time) with a libretto, in the library at the college where he taught — or perhaps it was at the church where we were members.
Whichever it was, my father arranged to borrow it and recorded it when the technology for doing so was primitive, to say the least. The record he used as his source was scratchy, and it yielded a copy that was far from perfect. But I treasured that tape and listened to it endlessly until it finally gave out.
And even today, when I hear a song from that original recording, I remember that Christmas morning, whenever it was, and I listened for the first time to that tape my father made for me.
OK, my musical Christmas memories aren't exactly "White Christmas" or "Jingle Bells."
But they're mine, and I treasure them.
If you have a few minutes to spare on this Christmas Day, I'd like to hear about your Christmas memories — musical or not.
(She said it is hard not to like the number of the day you were born, and I guess that's true. I never really thought of it that way before.
(Using similar logic, I guess, it's hard not to feel partial to a holiday on which one is born. And, while I have never discussed this with my brother, my guess is that he feels the same way. He was born the day after New Year's Day.)
Well, my situation is unusual, I suppose. It wasn't Thanksgiving where I was born. You see, my parents were Methodist missionaries in Africa at the time of my birth. They were always American citizens, though, and back in America, my grandparents were observing the Thanksgiving holiday, probably with their friends.
I don't know if my parents had planned to observe the holiday with their American friends (I don't even know if traditional Thanksgiving foods were available at that time in that part of the world). I don't think I was due for another two or three weeks so it's possible that they had plans, but, if they did, I disrupted them. Clearly, my mother was in the hospital that day, and I guess my father was sitting in the waiting room.
No one ever told me the story of how that day unfolded, but I think it is safe to assume that neither of my parents ate any turkey and stuffing that Thanksgiving.
In spite of the fact that I was born on Thanksgiving, I've always had mixed feelings about it. I like the concept of being grateful for what you have, but that begs the question of "Grateful to whom? Grateful to what?"
I mean, does the very act of setting aside a day to express gratitude for what you have necessarily imply faith in a higher power?
For some, I suppose the answer is "yes" — albeit an indirect confirmation. As Meister Eckhart, a theologian from the Middle Ages, said, "If the only prayer we ever said was 'Thank you,' that would be sufficient."
For such people, the very act of being thankful is an acknowledgment of faith.
But doesn't that suggest that you are being rewarded for doing the things you are expected to do? And, if that is true, then the whole God–man relationship, from early times to the present day, is founded in a kind of performance–based agreement, kind of like the incentive bonuses that some pro athletes have written into their contracts.
It's the kind of thing I can equate to my own life.
As a child, I was always eager to please my elders so I tried to do the things they wanted me to do. I took certain classes because they were recommended to me. I participated in certain activities because they were recommended to me.
I went to college and graduate school for much the same reason, I suppose. There was more to it, of course, but it definitely played a role. When I look back on it now, I wonder if I did so with certain expectations of the outcome, that each of the "right" things that I did made the ultimate payoff more secure.
I guess I'm not so different from most people, even if I was born on Thanksgiving. I'm a seeker, a questioner, a doubter, a skeptic. That may be part of the reason I gravitated to journalism.
Then, again, it was hard not to be a seeker, a questioner, a doubter, a skeptic if you grew up when I did. It always seemed like those who were in charge were lying to the rest of us — Lyndon Johnson lied about Vietnam, Richard Nixon lied about Watergate and so on.
It was hard to know who or what to believe so I turned to my elders. I put my trust in them, and they told me to trust God.
I was brought up to believe in God, to believe in Jesus, to believe the Bible. But, in my experience, most of the people who were brought up that way went through their moments of doubt and pain as well.
Some of the people I knew when I was growing up lost their faith along the way. I still want to believe the things I was told when I was young are true. But many of the things I have seen contradict that, especially lately.
This isn't a new crisis for me. It wasn't brought on by Phyllis' death. Phyllis' death merely contributed to a pre–existing condition. She always seemed to understand things I don't understand.
Phyllis never lost her faith in God, and she suffered in her last years, which came far too early. There are many things about that experience that I don't understand. What was the purpose behind it?
When I was a child, I was told there was a purpose behind everything, a reason for every life. But I struggle when I look for the purpose.
Several friends have died this year. I expect that, of course. But the last few years have been brutal — this year in particular. Before Phyllis died, two of my friends killed themselves, and others (of varying ages) died of other causes.
And I have been without full–time employment for more than two years. I am doing some part–time teaching at the local community college, and I guess I am thankful for that this Thanksgiving. But it doesn't pay much.
There is still much uncertainty, a lot more than I ever dreamed there would be back when I thought I was doing all the right things to make my future a bright one.
I'm probably not the only one who has thought that, if there is a God and he really does have a master plan, this would be a good time for him to let me in on it — or at least let me in on enough of it to know things are moving in the right direction.
Things have been a bit chaotic for me in recent years.
Today would have been my friend Phyllis' birthday.
Regular readers of this blog might remember when Phyllis died back in August, and I sought to use my blog as a way of coming to terms with the sense of loss I was feeling.
Well, actually, I used all three of my blogs that way. In addition to this blog, I write a blog about movies and music and books, and I write another blog about sports. My memories of Phyllis transcend topics so, at one time or another after she died, I felt compelled to mention her in each of my blogs — more extensively in some than others.
How am I doing? Well, I'm OK, I guess. I'm still having my random thoughts, my doubts about the afterlife and all that. But, while this could be said to be part of my grieving and healing process, I want to focus today on some random memories of Phyllis.
Because, no matter how I'm feeling or how I'm coping (or trying to cope) with my loss, October 16 is and always will be Phyllis' day in my mind.
Phyllis and I met in sixth grade. In my then–small hometown, children went to one of three elementary schools, depending upon where their homes were located. Phyllis and I went to different elementary schools through the fifth grade, then the students from all three elementary schools were mixed together in the middle school melting pot, and (assuming their families remained in town) they stayed together through the end of high school.
Consequently, when you advanced to middle school and started sixth grade, there were the familiar faces of people you had known since first grade and a whole bunch of unfamiliar faces, people you needed to get to know because they were likely to play important roles in your life for the next seven years.
Middle school was a real change. In the first three grades, as I recall, students had the same teacher all day. In fourth and fifth grades, we had different teachers for different subjects, but we moved from one teacher to the next as a group throughout the day. The only face that differed from one class period to the next was the teacher's.
In middle school, the structure was pretty much what it was for the rest of my public school life. There were hour–long class periods, and one's teachers and classmates changed from one hour to the next.
I might start the day in math class, for example, but then, when first period was over, I would go to my next class, which might be history or English or science or whatever. There might be some students in that class who were with me in first period but not always — and rarely very many.
I remember quite well the sea of faces that greeted me on that first day of middle school. I couldn't tell you who most of them were, but I do remember Phyllis.
Now, as I wrote in August, I always think of music when I think of Phyllis and, for some reason, I think of "My Sweet Lord" when I try to remember the first time we met. Since I wrote that, though, I have been less and less certain that the song actually was playing nearby, on the radio or a stereo, when we met.
I speculated a couple of months ago that that song may have been a hit on the radio when Phyllis and I started sixth grade. Maybe it was. Or maybe my mind is linking a popular song from that period to Phyllis because of her flair for music — or because of her faith in God.
In short, there may be no event from my childhood that is buried in my subconscious mind that should make me think of "My Sweet Lord" — but I think of Phyllis when I hear it, anyway.
God only knows why.
I guess the earliest memory I have of Phyllis that is based on an actual event is from those early days of middle school, when everything was new.
Our teacher — a middle–aged black woman (the first black teacher I ever had, by the way) — was going through the class roll and trying, without much success, to pronounce some of the most difficult surnames in our class. (Years later, many of those names would cause similar pronunciation problems for the folks who had to call out our names as we walked across the stage to receive our diplomas the night of our high school graduation.)
Phyllis' last name was Yarbrough so, alphabetically, hers was always the last — or nearly the last — name to be called. By the time our sixth–grade teacher got to her name, she seemed to be on the verge of just giving up and looked out at the young faces in the room, seemingly searching for help, and she just said, "Phyllis ..." and sort of trailed off.
Phyllis had been through that before, and, without batting an eye, she told the teacher that other teachers had had trouble pronouncing it, too. One teacher, she said, called her Phyllis Yarber. Then she told the teacher how to pronounce her name.
But if the teacher got it wrong, Phyllis said, she shouldn't worry about it.
"I'll answer to just about anything!" she assured the teacher, and the rest of the class laughed.
As nearly as I can tell, that was the first time we met. I knew, right then and there, that I liked her. And I think the rest of the class felt the same way.
I even mentioned that memory to Phyllis during one of our Facebook"chats" in the last year of her life. She didn't exactly recall the incident, which was understandable, I guess. How could one remember a single incident from one's childhood?
But that memory has remained with me, and I hope it always does because — to me — it says so much about who Phyllis was.
She was born just about six weeks before I was. One day shy of six weeks, as a matter of fact. Exactly 41 days.
So, on Sept. 15, I quietly noted the fact that I had lived as long as Phyllis did. A month has now passed since that day.
Even if I die in the next few minutes, I still will have lived longer than my friend. But I doubt that I have acquired as much wisdom as she did.
And I really don't think my death, whenever it comes, will be as significant to as many people as hers.
That isn't really a regret, just a statement of a fact, recognition of how much she meant to so many people.
You know how, when you toss a pebble into a pond, it creates rings that start out small but keep expanding until they reach the shoreline — or whatever physical barrier they may encounter? That was what Phyllis' influence on people always seemed like to me. It started small, with the initial contact, and then got greater and greater.
I guess most people have a similar ripple effect — for good or evil — on all the lives they touch. It is more pronounced, I suppose, with those who are at the extremes.
A serial killer, for example, may leave in his wake the parents, siblings, lovers, children, friends, classmates, co–workers of his victims, and, if he is given the death sentence, few, if any, of those people will mourn his passing when it is carried out.
But there are those at the other end of the spectrum, like Phyllis, who encourage the people in their lives, who lift them up and help them find their way.
And, as the angel Clarence told George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life," they leave a huge hole when they aren't around.
Phyllis left a considerable hole in a great many lives.
There was a time, back in January, when I was pursuing what appeared, at the time, to be a promising writing opportunity. Part of my "audition" — for lack of a better term — required me to submit ideas for a potential TV show that would be aimed at children in the 8–12 age range.
I have never married and I have no children of my own, so I didn't have much experience upon which to draw, but, in the last couple of years, I have reconnected (through Facebook and other sources) with many old friends who have been married and who have raised children. And I sought input from many of them.
To be totally honest, I was really amazed at the response I got. I didn't ask for Phyllis' input because, although she had two stepsons, she didn't raise them, but I told her about the assignment and I listened, as always, to anything that she had to say.
Anyway, I remember talking to her about the response I had received from maybe two dozen of the women with whom Phyllis and I went to school. I never thought of myself as particularly popular when I was growing up, and many of the women who responded to my inquiry were the sort who struck me, when I was a teenager, as being among the elite.
They were, in my eyes, the beautiful people, and, when I was a teenager, I didn't think they would want to have much to do with the likes of me.
But maybe I was wrong. Or maybe (probably) attitudes changed over the years. Anyway, I was telling Phyllis about the response to my inquiries. I guess, in spite of my best efforts, some of that inner 14–year–old boy came to the surface, and she could tell how astonished I was.
"Sounds like a lot of people love you," she said.
That was such a typically Phyllis thing for her to say yet, in a way, it took me by surprise. If we had been sitting in the same room and we'd been having that conversation, I probably could have said it with her, word for word — and we might have laughed, the way that only people who have known each other for a long time can.
That's one of the things I will always remember about Phyllis. The laughter. She was always laughing. And she never laughed at you. She laughed with you.
If she ever laughed at anyone, it was herself.
Anyway, I might well have anticipated — in a Radar O'Reilly kind of way — what she was going to say.
But it surprised me, too, because it contradicted what I have always thought about myself and my relationships with many of the people I knew growing up.
Maybe it's true that most people simply cannot see themselves as others see them.
God only knows.
But if anyone I ever knew was truly loved by many, it was Phyllis. I don't know if she ever knew that. I hope she did.
For whatever reason, I've been remembering, this morning, a truly meaningless incident from our high school days. Phyllis and I were in some sort of civics class together, and one night we were attending a city council meeting for that class — perhaps as an assignment, perhaps for extra credit. We were keeping notes that we were to turn in to our teacher.
Anyway, something came up during the meeting, and Phyllis and I got kind of sidetracked by it. One of us started writing a note to the other, then handed the notebook to that person, who read it and wrote a response in his/her notebook and handed it to the other one.
This process was repeated over and over and over for the rest of the meeting, creating a running dialogue that balanced precariously between the two notebooks. I recall neither of us mentioning any of the agenda items that were discussed after we veered off on our tangent.
I also recall that we started giggling a few times, which drew disdainful looks from some of the council members so we tried to stifle our laughs. After all, we wanted to remain in the council room.
Somehow, we avoided being ejected. But the episode wasn't over.
Now, for the fallout ...
Our teacher, who retired several years ago and may or may not still be living, was apparently stressed to the max by trying to grade our notes/papers.
I don't remember the grades (or extra credit) we received, but I do remember that she wrote identical paragraphs at the end of our notes, complaining about having to juggle our papers to keep track of the conversation!
And she half–threatened to give us only half credit for attending the meeting. But Phyllis and I didn't take that seriously. We were her two best students. She wouldn't lower our grades for being silly!
Looking back on it now, it wasn't a great moment in education or community government, but it was a good example of the playful nature of our friendship.
As I say, totally meaningless and probably a waste of a minute or two of your time, but a memory that brings a smile to my face. It is a real pleasure, on this day, to remember that evening all those years ago.
Even now, nearly three months since her death, Phyllis is teaching me things about life. Like how completely honest old friends can be with each other.
In life and on Facebook, Phyllis rarely threw anything away. Facebook will post even the most innocuous of your activities, and Phyllis was a devotee of Facebook games like FarmVille and the like. On Facebook, you can delete anything on your "wall," but, if you visit Phyllis' page, you can find announcements about her achievements in FarmVille and other activities from a year ago — or longer.
Anyway, not long ago, I was looking back at the things people wrote on her "wall" on this day last year. It was sort of like a time capsule.
There were many messages that wished her a happy birthday or advised her to do something special. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks yourself.
Then there was a post from Phyllis, and the birthday girl thanked her friends for their birthday wishes — and for not mentioning her age.
Then there was a post from a mutual friend of ours from our high school days. "Gee, you're old," he wrote.
That's the kind of thing that only an old friend can say.
And it makes me regret all the more that I won't be able to enjoy the pleasure of Phyllis' company as I get older.
I guess that is appropriate. Phyllis, as I have said before, was a fan of old movies — and old movie stars. Her favorite was Clark Gable, who died when she was a toddler.
I suppose, if Phyllis had been given a choice, she might have chosen a different star with whom to share her date of death. If she had lived another three months, she could have died on the anniversary of Gable's death.
(Well, maybe August 5 was the next best thing. After all, Marilyn and Gable co–starred in what turned out to be the final movie for both.)
But I only recently learned something about the day Phyllis was born. On that very day, George C. Marshall died at the age of 78.
It seems fitting to me. Marshall was an accomplished man in many endeavors — a skilled military leader who helped prepare the Allied forces for the D–Day invasion (and who might have been president if he had been chosen — as was widely presumed at the time — to lead the invasion instead of Dwight Eisenhower), a humanitarian who, as secretary of state, oversaw the implementation of his Marshall Plan that played a crucial role in Europe's postwar recovery — and was rewarded with a Nobel Prize.
Marshall was admired by many for his accomplishments on a worldwide stage. Phyllis' stage was considerably smaller, but her influence was no less to those whose lives she touched. She left behind many friends and admirers who will long remember her achievements.
Well, Phyllis was one of those people who is hard to forget.
Most of the time these days, the memories of her life's achievements make me smile.
Those memories are made bittersweet, of course, by the knowledge that I can't share them with her. Ever again.
And there are still times when those memories bring tears to my eyes.
So, I guess, even on this day — Phyllis' day — when I want to think only of the happy times I shared with my friend, I can't entirely avoid my own conflicts.
I want to be happy for her, to be glad that the pain she experienced is over. I want to believe she is in a better place — but, while I do find personal inspiration, as I did when I was growing up, in the stories of Jesus' teachings, I can feel my faith waver on the subject of the afterlife.
And the questions have been more persistent since Phyllis died.
As I say, I'd like to believe she is in a better place. But, if I am honest with myself, I am not sure about it. I can only hope — perhaps mostly for selfish reasons — that there is an afterlife.
Because, if there is an afterlife, I can hope to someday see Phyllis again — as well as my mother and my grandparents and many other friends who are missed.
But, if there is not an afterlife, then this is all there is. Death will mean returning to the void from which I came.
I guess that wouldn't be so bad — except that it would make what happens here kind of pointless.
Well, I guess that depends on your point of view.
Phyllis was one of those people who believed that contributing in some way to an improved quality of life for those who follow is what matters, whether there is a God or not. She happened to believe that there is a God, and she felt called upon by God to do whatever she could to make things better for future generations — but, even if you could have proven to her, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that God does not exist, she still would have felt that improving the quality of life for those who follow is what is important.
That's just the way she was.
That brings to mind an exchange we had in one of our Facebook chats in the last year of her life. We were talking about the 2008 election. Phyllis, as I wrote at the time of her death, was raised a Democrat, but she became a Republican when Ronald Reagan was elected president.
Anyway, in 2008, she voted for John McCain, but she spoke in our chat of how happy she had been for her black countrymen, most of whom supported Barack Obama, on Election Night. "I was glad that it was so empowering for them," she told me.
Seldom, if ever, in my life have I heard a member of one political party speak so generously of the supporters of a victorious candidate from the other political party.
But that was Phyllis. She never mentioned whether she was particularly moved by the experience of voting for a presidential ticket that included a woman (I presume it was her first time to do that. I mean, she could have voted for the Mondale–Ferraro ticket against Reagan, but I don't think she did). She only spoke of the boost Obama's victory gave to black Americans.
Sometimes, I visit Phyllis' page on Facebook. I'm not sure why. But it seems that others do, too.
Phyllis was cremated and her ashes were scattered in a meaningful place, which is not a bad thing, but the problem is that there is no grave to visit, no place to pay one's respects.
No place to seek a semblance of closure. And I'm sure that may seem, to my longtime readers, like a strange statement to come from me. They know I'm skeptical about the concept of closure. But the crazy part is that I do feel a kind of closure when I visit that page.
Well, perhaps closure is the wrong word. I'm just not sure what the right word would be. Peace, maybe? Or calm?
I think, this must be how people who have lost loved ones at sea — or, perhaps, how the friends and relatives of many of the September 11 victims, the ones of whom no trace was found — must feel. Maybe that is why I come to Phyllis' Facebook page. It may be why others do, too.
Most may be like me — periodic visitors who just drop by to look and think, to meditate, as if one were sitting next to a babbling brook or beneath a shady tree. But a few leave messages, even though they know Phyllis can't read them.
It is sort of like lighting a candle or leaving a bouquet of flowers. Therapeutic, I suppose.
It's kind of like an emotional/psychological yardstick. Do you remember how your parents would use a yardstick to periodically measure you to see how tall you were? I kind of feel those messages for Phyllis are like that. If you're missing her more than usual, you can leave a message on her wall and come back months later and compare how you are feeling to how you had been feeling then — and measure your emotional growth.
"Missing you," wrote one.
I know that feeling. There are often times when a simple thought crosses my mind — "I miss you, Phyllis." I don't know where that thought comes from or what prompts it. Just an honest statement. It seldom comes with a context — even one as simple as "Gee, I wish you were here."
Actually, I guess, I kind of prefer the times when there is a logical context for that feeling. I just started teaching again (on an adjunct basis) after several years away from it. Phyllis was once a teacher, and there are times when I really miss the insights she could have provided — and that I expected to receive until about two weeks before the semester began.
But often — inexplicably — just that simple thought — "I miss you, Phyllis" — is what crosses my mind. Nothing else.
This isn't really new for me. I have been having that same experience since my mother died 15 years ago. There has seldom been a day in all those years when I haven't thought, at least once, of how much I miss her.
Sometimes my thought is not addressed to either Mom or Phyllis in particular but with both in mind — as if their spirits were sitting in the room, nodding knowingly and silently, barred from communicating with me directly because of some heavenly dictum.
I know all too well what it is like to miss someone who is never coming back.
Another wrote that she was "happy that you are out of pain ... sad for the rest of us who don't get to joke around with you anymore."
And I agree with that. Phyllis was in a lot of pain in the last years of her life, and I'm glad that is over for her. But still I miss her. I can't help it.
I swear, I really didn't want to write about how I'm coping. Today is supposed to be Phyllis' day.
When will I stop missing you, Phyllis? Will I ever stop missing you?
This morning, in my hometown of Conway, Ark., people are gathering to honor my friend Phyllis, of whom I have written much — and thought even more — in the last 10 days.
I have no doubt that there have been many private conversations about Phyllis and the influence she had on everyone she knew.
But this morning the first public notes of Phyllis' opus will be played for the world, almost certainly through some tears because this is a loss for all who knew her, but it will become increasingly joyful, as befits Phyllis herself.
All the things I have written here and elsewhere, all the e–mail exchanges and telephone conversations I have had with friends, all the unexpressed thoughts and memories I have had in these last 10 days will remain with me the rest of my life.
There really is no doubt about it, as far as I am concerned. When I think of Phyllis in the days, weeks, months, even years ahead (if what is left of my life can be measured in years), I will frequently remember many things that occurred after her death. Things of which she never knew — at least in her earthly existence (but that takes us into a discussion of faith and belief, or lack thereof, in an afterlife, and, although Phyllis devoutly believed in God, I don't really want to go there today).
It was that way for me when my mother died. The circumstances were different, but I still find myself thinking as much of the time right after her death as I do of the many wonderful memories I have of her when she was alive.
It wasn't that way for me with my grandmother, though. She had dementia — Mom called it "hardening of the arteries," which I have come to believe was a polite way of saying Alzheimer's disease in those days — and she was never really the grandmother I had known in the last eight or nine years of her life. When she died, I remember wondering if I would ever be able to think of her without picturing her the way she was at the end.
As it turned out, I worried needlessly about that. It wasn't long after her funeral that I realized that my memories of her when she was sick were rapidly receding. Today, I really have to concentrate to remember her in the grip of Alzheimer's. It is virtually effortless, though, for me to remember her when I was a child or — shudder — in my somewhat rebellious teenage years.
Circumstances may have a lot to do with that. I watched my grandmother decline for years. My mother and Phyllis, on the other hand, seemed to be snatched away without warning.
Long before this time of mourning and reflection, I associated Phyllis with music. She was always musical. We didn't know each other for the first 11 or 12 years of our lives, but I'd be willing to bet she was always musical as a child. It really wouldn't surprise me if she was born with a song on her lips.
Well, we knew each other from sixth grade on, and, while I couldn't tell you how or where we met, I'm sure music was there, not far away, in one form or another. Maybe a radio was on. Maybe one of those newfangled 8–track or cassette tapes was playing.
Maybe we were in the generic music appreciation class that we all had to take when we were in middle school in those days.
For some reason, my mind associates my first meeting with Phyllis with "My Sweet Lord." Perhaps that was the big hit at the time?
Anyway, as I have written here before, she had many interests, many talents. I will think of those gifts often in the time that is left to me. But the gift that will always stand out in my memory is her gift for music and her eagerness to share it with others.
Fifteen years ago, when the film "Mr. Holland's Opus" came out, I thought about Phyllis when I saw it. It seemed natural to do so. It was so familiar — the marching band, the joy of making music, the public school setting.
Besides, even when I was an adolescent, I pictured Phyllis teaching music — and, although she did other things in her life, she actually did teach music for several years. I didn't know that when the movie came out, though, but it didn't require much of a mental leap for me to see Phyllis in Mr. Holland.
I'm sure she dabbled in composition, too, even if it was mostly part of her music studies. I don't know what she was doing when the movie came out. But I found myself wondering, as I watched the final scene (which you can see in the attached clip), if Phyllis, like Mr. Holland, had ever felt that her life had been "misspent."
Perhaps, as was said of Mr. Holland, Phyllis worked secretly on a composition that could have made her rich and famous. But Phyllis, like Mr. Holland, was not wealthy (by traditional standards), and she wasn't famous outside our town (which was small when we were growing up but has mushroomed in recent years) or our county.
So she may not have been working on that symphonic composition that could have brought her fame, but she was rich, though. Not in a monetary sense, but in all the lives she touched, and those lives will always be different because of her. Whatever is accomplished here on earth by those she left behind can truly be said to have been the result, at least in part, of her influence.
In the days since her death, I have seen entries in an online guestbook at the funeral home and on her Facebook page in which Phyllis has been described as bubbly, optimistic, always smiling. And that is true. In my mind, Phyllis will always be the same friend I remember from my teenage years, a force of nature, always positive, always insisting on the best from those around her because she always demanded the best from herself.
Did she ever consider herself a failure, as Mr. Holland's former student said of him? I don't know. Perhaps she did. Perhaps she felt like a failure if she allowed herself to think of how things may not have turned out as she had hoped.
I don't know how many conscious hours she spent in the hospital in her final weeks. And if I did know how many conscious hours she had, it still probably wouldn't be possible to know how many she passed believing she would recover — or if there was a point when she realized that she would not.
If she did realize, at some point, that she was not going to live much longer, she may have reflected on the things she would not have, like the opportunity to grow old (and to do so with her husband, whom she did not marry until a decade before her death), or the path she did not take.
That seems unlikely to me. Phyllis never was the sort who would dwell on what might have been. But who can say what goes through the mind of a dying person who may have already experienced the other four stages of death (anger, denial, bargaining and depression) and is left with only the final stage — to accept the inevitable?
The only thing I can conclude is, if she ever did think of herself as a failure, she was wrong, as Mr. Holland would have been.
Today, I suspect that the church where her memorial service is being held will resemble the auditorium in the final scene from "Mr. Holland's Opus." It may not be as large, and it won't be anywhere near as joyous — and that really is too bad because Phyllis deserved that kind of recognition, from a huge auditorium filled with cheering admirers, during her lifetime — but, like that auditorium, the church will be filled with some — but far from all — of the lives that were graced by Phyllis' touch.
Those lives in the church today will be merely part of Phyllis' opus, the music of her life, and through those lives and many more her spirit will live on. They will play a music that others may not hear but which was inspired by Phyllis. And for years to come, the world will continue to be touched by her, in ways that are seen and unseen, heard and unheard.
Thank God for that.
OK, I know I said earlier that I didn't want to talk about faith — and I still don't — but Phyllis always believed in God. Regardless of whatever doubts I may have, it still seems appropriate on this day to be thankful that Phyllis' spirit will live on in this world, that she won't soon be forgotten.
And if that is God's doing, then I say a heart felt "Thank you."
At the same time, I suppose, there is an equal and opposite reaction, personified in a small voice that protests that we should have had more time with Phyllis, a sense that what we should have had and what we got were two different things.
I confess, I do feel that way at times. It's the same feeling I had when my mother died.
But that's me, wrestling with my sense of loss. And I want to get past that because, as I said, Phyllis wouldn't have dwelled on what might have been.
In the future, I want to remember Phyllis with gratitude for all the things we shared.
I guess there really isn't much left to say now — except for this.
I remember once, when I was a child, I was with my mother in a store in New York City, where we were spending the summer. And I saw a sign promoting a certain brand of beer that proclaimed, in its commercials of that day, that it had "gusto."
I was only about 7 or 8 at the time, I guess, and I asked my mother if we could get some. I didn't know what beer was. I guess I thought it was some special kind of root beer (I liked root beer when I was a child, and I still associate its flavor with pleasant memories of childhood) — and I must have figured that gusto was some kind of special ingredient, like the barley and hops I had heard mentioned in other beer commercials.
Mom was a non–drinker in those days — later in her life, she did enjoy an occasional glass of wine with dinner, but, as I say, that was later in her life — and she must have been appalled when she heard her child asking her if we could buy a six–pack.
It was an honest mistake, though. I didn't know what beer was — and I sure didn't know what gusto was.
But I do now — because of Phyllis. You could see it in the way she approached everything — her music, her studies, her relationships. She truly had a gusto for life that she passed on — or tried to pass on — to all those around her, strangers as well as friends and family, although she seemed to be particularly intent upon sharing it with those who were closest to her.
And I will try to live the rest of my life in a way that would make her proud.
You know, it can seem terribly daunting to try to go forward after someone significant in your life has died. But we must carry on the best we can. Is there any other option?
Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon may have said it best. He endured what may be the greatest loss a person can endure — the loss of his son.
"I've never looked back and regretted anything," he said. "I've had everything in baseball a man could ask for. I've been so fortunate. Outside of my boy getting killed. That really puts it in perspective. So you don't win the pennant. You don't win the World Series. Who gives a damn? Twenty years from now, who'll give a damn?
"You do the best you can. That's it."
And that is what I will do. My best. It is all I can do.
This is the third straight day I have felt compelled to write about the death of my good friend, Phyllis.
Maybe I am obsessing. But I can't really help it. I keep remembering things that I had long forgotten. And maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, there is the belief that if I keep writing about her, I can somehow put off the finality of it all.
That's ridiculous, of course. Phyllis is gone. I've confirmed it in numerous ways — through friends, the online obituary at the funeral home, just about every way I can except for an obituary in our hometown newspaper (Phyllis died on Thursday, but there is still no report of it in the local paper — I don't know why).
I guess it's my training as a journalist at work. I have to confirm things through multiple sources before I can believe they are true.
And the thoughts I've had probably fall more in the category of "things I'm having trouble understanding" rather than "things I remember with fondness."
There are many things about Phyllis that I do — and, most likely, will — remember with much fondness, even though they bring tears to my eyes now. Some of those things I prefer to keep private, though. They're just memories I have of moments and things we shared. There is nothing particularly poignant about them, other than the knowledge I now have of how everything ended for her.
For example, Phyllis' last name — at least when we were in school together — was Yarbrough. I shortened that to "PY," which is what I called her in high school and continued to call her after we graduated. As the years went by, other people called her "PY," too. Some may have been inspired to do so by my example. Others may have done it on their own. Whatever the reason, it is a nickname many used for her until her dying day.
Well, I guess it wasn't used so much after she married. Based on some notes she wrote about herself on Facebook just about a year ago, one of her nicknames was "PC" — a moniker that, apparently, she acquired after her surname became Coleman. (I guess it was sort of a double entendre, considering how "PC" is often used as the abbreviation for "personal computer" or "political correctness.")
I will always remember one evening when we were finishing up a "chat" on Facebook, and I said something like, "Good night, PY." There was a pause, then came her reply: "No one has called me that in years! It feels good."
Then she called me "DG" — my initials. It's also the nickname she used for me in high school. Nobody had called me that in years, either. And it felt good.
Now, I wonder if anyone will ever call me "DG" again. I feel torn on that one right now.
I feel that way about other things.
Even though I know she's dead — and it had been awhile since we "chatted" on Facebook — I can't help thinking, whenever I sit down in front of my computer, that I need to send a message to Phyllis asking her when she will be free to chat. And I have to remind myself that we won't be chatting anymore. I wonder when I'll stop doing that.
I'm really going to miss our chats. I miss them already.
I remember last year when I had submitted an application for a writing job online, and the application asked me a question that I had never been asked before. I wanted to talk to Phyllis about it.
The application asked, "What is your favorite word and why?" Phyllis asked me what my answer had been. I told her, "Redemption — because it suggests that no mistake is permanent, that we can all learn from our errors."
My answer must not have impressed the potential employers, but it impressed Phyllis. "It shows you're smarter than the average bear," she said, alluding to a line from the Yogi Bear cartoons of our childhoods.
And I think about when we were in school together, and we went to her house after school sometimes. It was there that she introduced me to some of the music that was special to her — jazz musician Maynard Ferguson and country singer Kenny Rogers stand out in my memory.
I've tried to listen to some of the music we listened to when we were teenagers. I can't do it. Not yet. My wound is too fresh.
It reminds me of how I felt when I lost my mother. It has been the same out–of–the–blue, punched–in–the–gut experience for me.
There are other things about Phyllis — or, more accurately, the subject of death — that I still feel a need to write about. I don't expect an answer — although, if anybody has one, I certainly would love to hear it.
I e–mailed Doug with the news Friday afternoon. In his response, he spoke of the "McGovern Club" and said that "I'm sure Phyllis would want us to carry on."
I know Doug meant well by that, and he may be right. If you could ask her, I am confident that Phyllis really would want all those she left behind to "carry on."
She would have felt bad if she had thought that, when she left this life, no one would mourn her passing (I would say there were/are two chances of that happening — slim and none).
But I think she would have felt worse if she thought that anyone was so overwhelmed or paralyzed by their grief that they couldn't function.
Nevertheless, I have never really understood why anyone would assume they know what a deceased person would think or say or feel. I guess, if you were close to a person who died — a spouse or a sibling or a longtime friend — you might have a pretty good idea. But you can't know something like that for sure. Can you?
Similarly, I guess, I'm not really sure what I think when I hear people talk about how someone who died is "looking down and smiling." As George Carlin said, you never hear people say that someone is looking up at us and screaming from the fires of hell — even if the person in question really lived a despicable life.
It comes back to that afterlife question, I suppose, and whatever one imagines it to be like. And part of it, I guess, is a reluctance on the part of those who are still living to suggest (even if they believe it) that someone they knew is now suffering eternal damnation.
It also makes me think of something else. Using words like "up" and "down" suggests a spatial element to the spiritual world when space, it seems to me, is really more of a characteristic of the physical world.
It's sort of like the concept of space in the digital age. These things I write and the images I post with them all take up a certain amount of space in the non–physical internet world. I have "folders" on my computer that are filled with things I have written, photos I have scanned and things like that. But they do not take on a physical quality unless I print them out.
I think it is the fact that we mortals know so little about what is next — if anything is — that prompts us to give the afterlife characteristics that are familiar to us from our physical existences.
Phyllis, for example, was an accomplished musician. I often hear talk of a heavenly chorus or a heavenly band, and, if such a thing really does exist, I'm sure Phyllis is a part of it.
But it doesn't make sense to me that she would play instruments she played in the physical realm. What use would a spirit have for instruments that were created by humans from materials they had on earth?
See, my understanding of the history of musical instruments is that they largely came into being because humans discovered that this or that could produce certain sounds — and, when certain sounds were made together, they produced music.
But music has long been used to glorify one's faith in a God. The Bible, after all, mentions the sound of heavenly music from time to time, even to the ancients, whose only "instruments" may have been hollowed out logs or reeds or something like that.
So, perhaps, we're kinda sorta on the right track. I mean, maybe there is that heavenly band, and, if there is, as I say, I'm sure Phyllis is part of it. But I don't think she's playing a flute or a piccolo. If heaven really is perfect, I am thinking, she must be playing instruments that are beyond our mortal comprehension.
My grandfather enjoyed fishing in his later years. After he died, I heard people talk of how he was in his boat catching the big ones in heaven. Same thing. Why would a spirit need a boat? Boats were created by men to serve their specific purposes — to cross bodies of water or to pursue creatures, like fish, that lived in the water.
But water is something that humans need, like air and food and sleep and clothing and shelter. Spirits don't.
Likewise, spirits don't need boats or cars or any other conveyance to travel from one place to another. They aren't subject to physical laws. Are they? The Bible speaks of God sending messengers (i.e., heavenly spirits) to earth, but it doesn't say that they used airplanes or cars or boats to make their journey.
But neither Phyllis nor anyone else has (to my knowledge) visited me — in either my dreams or my waking moments — to share with me any insights they may have. Angels or spirits or whatever they are, if they do exist, apparently haven't made my home one of their destinations on their visits here.
Maybe they only visit certain people, like Haley Joel Osment's character in "The Sixth Sense." If so, maybe I will need to find a real–life Haley Joel Osment one of these days, just to find out if Phyllis — or anyone else I knew — has anything to say to me.
On the other hand ...
I have a friend who insists that her mother, who passed away several years ago, has visited her — in the guise of her mother's favorite bird. That, apparently, is how my friend knows it was her mother. The bird sang, as birds do, and perched on my friend's windowsill for a couple of moments, then flew off.
It imparted no special wisdom to her. As far as I know, it did nothing out of the ordinary to let my friend know its true identity. It just happened to show up at a moment when my friend was thinking about her mother — with whom, I guess it should be said, my friend often had a stormy relationship when they both occupied the same plane of existence.
So, on the one hand, I guess I am skeptical of the existence of angels and spirits — and, if they do exist, of their ability to travel from wherever the afterlife may be to earth or anywhere else.
I guess there are a lot of things about the spiritual world that I don't understand.
Something else I wonder about is the stuff I've heard since I was a little boy — like how your life flashes before your eyes when you're dying.
I have to wonder if that's true. If it is, how do we know? I mean, if it is true, it's only happened to people who were just about to "cross over," as the saying goes.
And I wonder if it happened with Phyllis. As the life was ebbing from her body, did her earthly experiences flash before her eyes? If they did, what did she see and whom did she see? Did she see herself at the various stages of her life? Did she see people who have made what is called a "transition?" Or did she see friends and relatives she was leaving behind?
My logical mind wonders if the idea that dying people see their lives flash before their eyes arose from an attempt to understand incoherent ramblings. Perhaps some people had hallucinations on their deathbeds and called out to people who weren't there, who may have died years before.
And perhaps that was misinterpreted by those who survived.
I guess there are a lot of things I will never understand — or, at least, won't understand until my time to die comes.
Until that day, I guess there will always be times when I will regret that I didn't have that last chance to tell Phyllis goodbye, to tell her I loved her and how much she had meant to me, how much she had influenced me, how her memory will always be with me — even her voice, which I haven't heard in years and will never hear again, will echo in my ears almost every day.
But Phyllis was very perceptive. And I'm sure she knew all those things, even without hearing (or reading) them from me.
The Bible tells us that God moves in mysterious ways.
And it is not given to us humans, I have often been told, to understand those ways. We are asked to accept them — even when the logical and rational mind practically screams out, "Why?"
If you read this blog yesterday, you know that a dear friend of mine died a couple of days ago — but I didn't find out about it until yesterday. And I have been trying to make sense of it.
I guess it takes me a couple of days of putting my thoughts down — I used to do it on paper, now it's mostly on the computer screen — before I can adjust to this kind of news. My friend's name, in case you didn't read my earlier entry, was Phyllis, and she had colon cancer.
But that may not have been the cause of her death.
I've had several friends now who have died of cancer. In fact, today is the anniversary of one of those deaths. As a result, I guess you could say I never really feel that, once someone has been diagnosed with cancer, he or she is ever truly cancer–free. Some of my friends thought that they were cancer–free, only to learn their cancer had returned.
But I never say anything about that to a friend who has cancer, though. And I always hope for the best. I rejoice with my friends if they tell me that their doctors have told them they are in remission. And, in some cases, I suppose, some people I know have been cured — not temporarily but in the truest sense of the word.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, after all, was diagnosed with colon cancer a decade ago. Last year she was treated for pancreatic cancer. But she's still around at the age of 77. I don't know if that means she has permanently beaten her cancer. But she has survived.
So there are exceptions. And I try to remember that. But I guess I've been conditioned since early in my life to regard a cancer diagnosis as a death sentence — one that may be carried out shortly or after a long, drawn–out, roller–coaster ride (both mentally and physically), but one that is, ultimately, unavoidable.
Many strides have been made in the treatment of cancer since I was a little boy. Some types of cancer have been conquered. And survival rates are, at least, better for other types of cancer than they were. So the mere mention of the word cancer in a diagnosis does not automatically mean there is no hope — as it once did.
Now, as I said yesterday, I don't know the details of Phyllis' death. At the time she went in to the hospital, I really believed she was being treated for pneumonia. And perhaps she was.
I'm not a doctor, but I figured the diagnosis of pneumonia might have complicated her cancer treatment. And that made sense to me. Maybe I misunderstood. Or perhaps Phyllis chose not to fill in all the blanks.
I can't honestly say what my rationale was. I just didn't feel her pneumonia was a threat to her life.
And that is, I guess, why I felt such a sense of shock when I heard about Phyllis' death. Maybe that's why I have felt so blindsided by this news. Perhaps if I had been there and I had been able to see her with my own two eyes, I would have seen that my friend was dying.
And I would have felt better prepared for it when it came to pass.
But there was too much physical distance between us.
Phyllis was living in our hometown of Conway, Ark., at the time of her death — although I know she lived in other places after we graduated from high school together — and I have been living in Dallas for the last 14 years. I really couldn't tell you the last time we actually saw each other, the last time we heard each other's voices, the last time we hugged. We reconnected on Facebook last year and "chatted" there from time to time.
And it was through Facebook in the last couple of months that I picked up tidbits of news — that Phyllis had been in intensive care, that she had been removed from intensive care. But I heard nothing more substantial than that until yesterday.
I gather, from what I have picked up since, that it was primarily pneumonia that ended her life. Perhaps a doctor would tell you that it was the pneumonia and the cancer combined that finished her off. I'm certainly no doctor, but I know that, even though pneumonia doesn't usually kill people in our age group, a compromised system is more vulnerable to opportunistic diseases.
So, perhaps her cancer played an indirect role. Or perhaps pneumonia was the sole cause of death. It doesn't really matter. I don't need to see the death certificate.
All I need to know is that my friend is dead — and our mutual friends and I are grieving.
It is, as I say, a place I've been before. It isn't one I have been eager to revisit.
This is eerily reminiscent — 19 years ago, when I was in north Texas, finishing my work on my master's degree, another old friend from my Arkansas days was diagnosed with cancer in the spring. He declined rapidly, then died on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 1991. A mutual friend called me that night with the news and told me his parents wanted me to be a pallbearer at the funeral in Pine Bluff that Saturday.
So I did what I had to do to get ready to drive to Little Rock after work on Friday. I would stay overnight with a friend who also was going to be a pallbearer, then we would drive to Pine Bluff for the funeral the next day.
It was a busy time for me, and the distraction was welcome. Without it, I would have spent every waking moment thinking about my friend. But, even so, I always felt that I was right on the edge of breaking down — except for a few minutes that Friday night, when I was driving along the highway that cuts through southwestern Arkansas sometime after sundown.
There wasn't much traffic, stars filled the sky and temperatures were dropping. I rolled down my window a little and switched on the radio. Immediately, I heard the Eagles singing a song I seldom heard before and even more rarely since, "My Man."
It seemed as if Mike was talking to me through the song:
"My man's got it made He's gone far beyond the pain And we who must remain Go on living just the same We who must remain Go on laughing just the same."
Here I am, 19 years later, and another friend has gone far beyond the pain. And I am reminded how desperately I want to hope.
I hope the song speaks the truth. I hope Phyllis does have it made now. I hope there really is an afterlife because, if there is, I have no doubt that she is reaping her rewards for the life she lived here on earth. (I may have my doubts from time to time about whether an afterlife exists, but I have no doubt that, if it does, certain people I have known in my life are there.)
Many of those "who must remain" will be gathering in my hometown a week from Monday to remember Phyllis and celebrate her life. I wish I could be there. But I can't help feeling that, even though I can't be there, Phyllis' spirit is working some of her special magic.
And it makes me hopeful that an afterlife really does exist.
In the aftermath of her death, I have reconnected in Facebook with a mutual friend from my high school years, also named David, who is living in this area. He'll be in my hometown in the days leading up to Phyllis' memorial, working on the arrangements, then I will be starting my new job the next week, but we've agreed to get together and have a couple of Cokes about three weeks from now.
It's been a long time since we've seen each other — and, David, if you're reading this, I must warn you that my hair isn't brown anymore! — so we'll probably spend some time getting caught up. And we'll certainly reminisce about Phyllis.
It may be a good thing that some time will pass before we get together. If we were getting together today, I'm sure there would be many tears from both of us.
Three weeks probably won't be enough time to completely drain those tear ducts, though, and we were two of many who loved Phyllis so I'm sure there will be moments when one of us will say something that moves the other to tears.
That's a healthy part of the grieving process, I guess, and, if one believes in the afterlife, which Phyllis clearly did, it will be helpful to believe that she has gone beyond her pain and that now, she's got it made.
And we who must remain will go on living and laughing, even when it means laughing through the tears, because Phyllis brought a lot of laughter into all our lives. We will miss that and we will miss her.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to listen to "My Man."
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act but a habit."
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."
Unknown
"Everything in life can teach you a lesson. You just have to be willing to observe and learn."
Howard Arnold Walter (1883-1918)
"I would be true, for there are those who trust me; I would be pure, for there are those who care; I would be strong, for there is much to suffer; I would be brave, for there is much to dare."
"In the best of times, our days are numbered anyway. So it would be a crime against nature for any generation to take the world crisis so solemnly that it put off enjoying those things for which we were designed in the first place: the opportunity to do good work, to enjoy friends, to fall in love, to hit a ball and to bounce a baby."
Unknown
"If you're lucky enough to get a second chance at something, don't waste it."
Harry Truman (1884-1972)
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."
George Carlin (1937-2008)
"I've got this real moron thing I do. It's called thinking. And I'm not really a good American because I like to form my own opinions. I don't just roll over when I'm told to. Sad to say, most Americans just roll over on command. Not me. I have certain rules I live by. My first rule, I don't believe anything the government tells me."
Stephen King (1947- )
"People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad."
Dr. Seuss
"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You."
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face."
Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
"Whatever it is, I'm against it."
Mel Brooks (1926- )
"If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none."
Edward R. Murrow (1908-65)
"The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue."
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
"Every man is my superior in that I may learn from him."
Confucius (551-479 B.C.)
"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."
Ancient proverb
"Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad."
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction."
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)
"Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people."
Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
"The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead."
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
I still miss her, as so many others do, but the pain has been receding for me since this day last year. I guess I was more melancholy then. I think I'm doing better now. It was, after all, barely two months since my friend had died. I was still grieving.
