(Note: On my
2026 to-do list is to publish a book that memorializes friends. People die a
second time when stories and memories about them stop. I don’t want that to
happen. Here’s the preface of upcoming People Die Twice.)
Friends tease me, but I don’t
mind.
They say that I mostly write about
dead people.
Billy Cheshire is one of those
believers.
Billy and I were Yellow Jackets
on the 1964 and 1965 Jesup High School football team. As a quarterback, he was
good enough to win a Florida State University scholarship in Tallahassee. As a
lightweight lineman, I was good enough to win a letterman’s jacket and a ride
in the backseat of Big Dink and Margie’s Buick, all the way to Athens and the
University of Georgia. He’s a retired CPA, and I’m still clicking these keys.
Billy’s dad was my 12th-grade
government teacher. Bill Cheshire kept the class engaged, especially when he
turned on his deadpan humor. His son inherited that quick, straight-faced wit.
Except this one time.
When I walked up to greet my old
teammate, Billy snapped, “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“What?”
“I saw Ernie Bowen’s picture in
your column. And I thought, ‘Oh Lord, Ernie has died!’”
“What?”
“Yeah, you know, you are always
writing about the dead. My heart almost stopped. Had Ernie died?”
And then he cracked one of those signature
“Cheshire” grins. Glad we could both laugh.
The reason that our beloved
football-equipment manager’s photo was in my column was that I had attended
Ernie and Dale’s daughter’s UGA law school graduation. Three years earlier, I
had toured Casey and her parents on the Athens campus, introducing them to the
law school’s associate dean and a superior court judge. I wasn’t about to miss her
graduation celebration.
Billy was wrong about Ernie’s
passing away (praise the Lord), but he was right about this. Over my 55-year
career, I have written more than 200 columns about friends who have died. I
can’t count the eulogies delivered. I contend, “People should be remembered.”
And I believe, as others have
professed, “People die twice.”
First, the heart stops.
Next, the stories and memories
stop.
My hope is to do what I can to
keep those stories and memories rolling forward.
In 1998, when I gave my dad’s
eulogy, I said, “So many of you have asked, ‘What can I do?’”
And my answer was, “Please save your favorite Dink NeSmith Sr. stories. Share them with his great-grandchildren, whom he never had the joy of holding in his arms. Help keep him ‘alive.’”
When a friend or family member
dies, that’s what all of us can do. It’s a gift of love and respect that can
keep giving, over and over, for generations. That’s why I wanted my book, The
Last Man to Let You Down, My Daddy the Undertaker, in the hands of his
great-grandchildren.
I
barely knew either of my grandfathers. And I didn’t want that to happen to our
eight grandchildren. As one of my dear mentors, the late Dr. J.W. Fanning,
preached, “Only words live forever.”
Amen.
Billy’s not the only classmate who
has mentioned my writings about deceased people. Edna Byrd Williamson and I
were chatting at a Class of 1966 reunion when she said, “They say that you have
a file on everyone in Wayne County.”
“Why would they say that, Edna?”
“Because you seem to remember
everything about everybody.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, but I
took my friend’s remarks as a compliment.
No, I don’t have a file on
everybody.
On a side note, our
children—Alan, Emily and Eric—believe I can remember the day that I was born. Really,
I can’t. I tease, “But I do remember the ride home from the hospital. My dad
was driving Harrison Funeral Home’s black Cadilliac hearse that doubled as an
ambulance. I was in the back, lying on a plush pillow in a chocolate-brown
metal basket. And Mother had her hand on my head, as she cooed to her only
son.”
We
all have different skills. I can’t do calculus or quantum physics. But my
memory is pretty good, so far. And maybe that’s why I am anxious to get as many
words written, the sooner the better.
What
you are holding in your hands, People Die Twice, is an effort—through a
collection of personal columns and eulogies—to keep the people within these
pages “alive” by not forgetting them.
Billy,
Edna and everyone, I confess.
I
have been blessed—beyond measure—with friends and acquaintances.
I
loved them before they died the first time.
And
I vow to help keep their stories and memories “alive.”
Long
after their hearts stopped.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com