(Note: Coming later this fall is my latest book, People Die Twice, Second Time Stories Stop. In the 350-plus pages are dozens of memorial tributes to family and friends, including Wayne Countians Jimmy and Vonice Sullivan, Len Hauss, Dr. Lanier Harrell, Joe Phelps, Billy and Charles Parker, Warner Yeomans, James and Nanelle Bacon, Clint Madray, and more than 100 others. The following is the introduction to the chapter devoted to friends.)
“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
—Maya Angelou
My mother never met a stranger.
She was famous for “Hello, I’m Margie NeSmith from Jesup, Georgia.”
On a Jack Frost kind of night, I took Mother to the new Waffle House in Jesup. Her supper sat untouched. She was too busy craning her 89-year-old neck, studying everyone in the 24-hour restaurant.
“Son, other than you, I don’t know a soul in here.”
“Just a moment, Mother.”
I stood up and walked outside.
After surveying the parking lot, I came back to our booth.
“Mother, there’s not one Wayne County car tag out there. You aren’t supposed to know anyone in here but me.”
With that, she drizzled syrup on her cold blueberry waffle.
An extra serving of that DNA courses in my veins.
I like people, too.
That’s what this section of People Die Twice, Second Time Stories Stop is all about.
One old-school Rolodex won’t hold all the names. It’s not a boast, but I could fill a chunk of Waffle House’s 2,000-plus restaurants with friends and acquaintances.
A young associate watched me scroll through my cell phone looking for a number and chirped, “When you die, I want your contact list.”
Why do I bring that up?
Because that makes me lucky, ever so lucky.
Friends, along with family, are two of life’s most treasured blessings.
So, yes, I am fortunate.
Beyond measure.
If you think about it, I imagine you are, too.
In Waffle House terms, I am serving up a “scattered” platter of people’s memories that can live forever.
If we keep telling and retelling their stories.
Oh, what about Mother?
She’s been in Heaven—with Big Dink—since 2014.
And greeting multitudes of new angels with “Hello, I’m Margie NeSmith from Jesup, Georgia.”
