Memphis was maybe 14 years old, about my own age way back then. It was the birth of the 1950's when music was soft and sweet and so were most of the girls.
She was from Memphis and my uncle Chris's niece - but not related to me. So I felt I should at least try to get the courage to speak to her and maybe even try to hold her hand. I had just met her and somehow I was emotionally in a twirl, in a world of feelings I had never known. A world of very vivid senses that somehow I had never really experienced. A warm type of a caring that was strangely and excitingly different.
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| Screened In Porch Where I Met 'Memphis' |
I was not so bad looking or so I was told or maybe perhaps imagined. I sure was looking at her. Then she spoke very very softly to me. Almost in a whisper. Her eyes were bluer than blue. Her hair was golden and my heart was fluttering and pounding so much I couldn't really hear what she was saying very well.
Something about wanting to see all she could see while she could and touch everything she could. She was saying that she was leaving in just a few hours, that she and her dad had come to visit my uncle and aunt who were living in Granddad's 'little cottage' next door that summer.
I was a shy kid, at least when it came to girls I didn't know. Girls seemed a bit strange and yet incredibly special and this one was more than special. Right there, an angel sitting on the white wicker chair, but not touchable, not by me, not in my lifetime.
It was the early 1950's and a kid like me could look and dream but dared not touch. Was this a vision? Was she real? Why was I so distracted but emotionally enchanted by this beautiful young woman? Had a wonderful spell had been cast on me? If ever God had blessed me, it was on this day with this young woman.
Then she spoke. She said she'd like to walk to the dock and feel how cold the water was. Suddenly alive again, I jumped up and offered to walk down to the dock with her. It was hard to believe. She actually smiled at me and said it would be her pleasure! That bright smile breathed life itself. And her accent echoed the hospitality of the deep south.
We crossed the railroad track and down the steps to the dock we went, but not too fast, and not too quick. In fact she walked very slowly. I wanted to stop the clock and stop time and just enjoy this incredibly beautiful and pleasant young woman. I wanted to touch her hair and hold her in my arms, but I was just fantasizing, that couldn't really be an option. Wow, would my friends be impressed with the charm and beauty and grace of this southern belle!
She paused on the steps, stooped and carefully picked some mint leaves and then reached out to share some with me. "Smell them" she said. "Life is wonderful, its so great to be in such a lovely place". I can't put that southern charm into words here but if ever a young man was instantly in love it was me and this was the time and the place. This young woman was more than attractive, she was magic. She had instantly captivated and stolen my heart and maybe even my very soul.
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| The Dock and Boathouse |
She carefully spread the blanket out as if it hurt her to reach her arms. Then she asked if I'd hang on to her while she reached over the side to feel the water.... And I did. And she did. When she stood back up I wanted to pull her into my arms and kiss her, but I dared not.
No one had ever acted this way, said these things, been so pretty and reached out to me like this and now I knew this was a living angel and even looked like one.
There was more small talk and then she reached and took my hand as she got up. She held my hand tightly as we walked very slowly back to the little house, the cottage where her uncle lived. No girl had ever held my hand so firmly. It was as if she were afraid I'd let go.
Somehow I found the courage to ask for her address. Suddenly she turned and looked at me very sadly with those vibrant blue eyes and softly said, "My address is Heaven". "I'm going to be living with God and the Angels." That's what she said. Then she said "I have to go now, cause my dad and I have to visit everyone before I leave". There seemed to be tears in her eyes and and its for sure there were tears in my heart. Somehow I got the courage to tell her I didn't want her to leave. "Couldn't she stay a few days?" There was no answer. She just looked at me, right into my eyes and into my heart. Then she turned away.
A little later, she, my uncle and her dad climbed in my uncles old car and she was gone. I waved and she waved back, smiling brightly. The next day my uncle returned and I asked him for her address and he gave it to me.
In that slow deep southern drawl of his Uncle Chris said that she and her dad were visiting all their relatives before she was gone forever, that she had incurable cancer. He told me she had only maybe a year or so to live, that her kind of cancer was fatal and that she and her family had chosen not to put her though the pain of some of the more outrageous cancer treatments which in those days were even worse than treatment is today.
I was overwhelmed. And thats an understatement if there ever was one. I didn't want my uncle to see my tears. I turned and somehow walked away. I walked and walked and walked some more. I felt a terrible burden of pain and mixed up emotions I had never experienced before and rarely felt since.
Over the decades since then, every time I visited our family dock, and it was many thousands of times, I remembered. I remembered this especially beautiful human being and her intense beauty and her quiet dignity and perhaps most of all her selfless courage.
I remember today also, this very special and very brave and very courageous young woman from Memphis.
Today I too have stage IV cancer and the clock is ticking. And while I'd like to believe I have a little courage, its not a fraction of that shown by the incredible smile and will of that beautiful young woman from Memphis.
Footnote: Her real name was Ellen Kathleen Wray but friends and family called her Katie. She was born November 18th 1937 and went to be with God on February 14th 1955. The photo above is from when I met her. The photo below was taken shortly before her untimely and tragic death.
