THE PARTING OF DEATH

Here in rural Southwest Alabama, we take our relationships seriously. The highest compliment we can pay someone is to take them into our families. We may not always like our families, but we are intensely loyal to them. Once you become part of the clan, you are in for life, literally. One of my friends is dying. She had moved away from Alabama to go to Texas to be near family to have them help with an ailing husband. The husband is still with us after two open heart surgeries, a series of brain operations and a jaw full of tooth implants. He is 12 years older than his wife. She, the caregiver, is the one going first. She not only took care of him, but of another older friend who lived with them until he died.

We always thought Patsy would have a whole other lifetime after she buried the old guys. It didn’t happen that way. One month age she was diagnosed with lung cancer that had already spread to her spine by the time they found it. Her birthday was this weekend. Three of us who had shared her life for many years went to visit her. It was a good thing we did. They day after we left, she had surgery and is now on a respirator.

Our culture is such that we are not really used to people moving in and out of our lives. We are not a transient culture. We have deep roots. People who move in rarely move out. Even those who come in with the industries get stuck. They may be transferred, but they come back to use to retire.

We once had radar based located in Thomasville. It was one of three- Thomasville, Eufaula, and Dauphin Island designed to be the first line of defense against Cuba in the 1960s. Even the young men sent in to serve in the Air Force here seemed to stick. We’ve always said we’d have to wonder where a lot of the local girls would have found husbands if that base hadn’t been here because so many of the boys married local girls. Even those who didn’t came back a few years ago to have a reunion here. We’re the kind of place where you feel like you belong.

A good example of this is the Hatton family. They got ready to retire. They had a motor home. They pulled out a map of the Southwest Alabama area and put a pin in. They knew they liked the area, so they just selected a spot at random and came to explore. They were from one of those states up north with a lot of snow. That was their main criteria for choosing us. They settled in Coffeeville, one of the smaller towns in the area. It has one grocery store, a bank, a drugstore, and a couple of filling stations. They were welcomed and became part of the community.

The way my friend Patsy got to Thomaston, which became her hometown was through Army friends. Pasty’s husband was career army. They had never had roots. They came to visit their army friends and stayed 25 years. In a short time, Patsy became the mayor. She served most of 4 terms. She only left when her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was the town handy man. His condition was a secret. People still needed his services. Patsy was afraid he was going to get hurt or make a mistake on the job. To avoid this, they announced that they were moving to Texas to be near family. It turned out that the diagnosis was wrong. He had spinal fluid leaking, which has caused his brain to shrink. That was the problem instead of Alzheimer’s.

Of course, we have kept in touch. Friends may leave the area, but never leave our hearts. We have visited back and forth, but not often enough. There are four of us friends that call ourselves the YaYas ever since we read Rebecca Wells’ book of the same name. We’ve had many funny times together, a lot of them recalled this weekend. I’m so glad we had the opportunity. Sometimes it does get to be too late.