Managing Editor
There are some topics up for discussion on social media that I’d prefer not to take part in. Recently I saw one that asked if you could bring back someone from your past who is no longer living, who would it be and why?
When I was a sophomore in college in 1972, my mother called to let me know that a good friend of our family, Elma Jolley, had passed away in Rochester. She was in many ways like a sister to my mother, who had been orphaned at 12. After being placed in a succession of brutal foster homes and orphanages during the Great Depression, my mother and her sister found a permanent home with a devout Catholic family in Rochester, New York.
The family had three teenage daughters but welcomed two other girls into their household. One of the family’s daughters was Elma, who became lifelong friends with my mother. Elma married a man who worked at Eastman Kodak Company, and they did not have children, but after her father died of a sudden heart attack in the 1950s, she and her husband took in her mother and cared for her for the rest of her life.
We frequently visited them and spent several memorable Christmas Eves with them over the years. Elma’s mother, Philomena Shay, was my godmother, and when I was confirmed by the Catholic Church, I chose the name of Elma’s father, Louis, as one of my confirmation names.
Whenever our family went to their house, Elma would instruct me to go to their basement and bring up some soda pop for myself and my brother. They kept 10-ounce bottles of Coca Cola, Orange Crush and 7-Up in a cooler down there.
In the summer of 1971, about a month before I left for my freshman year of college, Elma and her husband, Bert, came to our house because they wanted to tell our family some news. It was one of the saddest days of my life when Elma sat in our living room and told us she had inoperable cancer and would soon die. She was only in her 50s and I burst into tears. I told her that I wasn’t going to go to college with this happening and she immediately stopped me.
She told me that I had to live my own life and going to college was something that she never had an opportunity to do. She encouraged me to go and make something of myself and that God had other plans for her. She said she would be watching me and pulling for me from wherever she was going.
Five months later she was dead, and 52 years later, I still find myself thinking about Elma from time to time. It is comforting to believe she is up there advocating for me and somehow, she sees what I have accomplished in life. I sure would want to speak with her again.
My father left this world so suddenly on May 19, 1991. He had just turned 65 and was driving home after a day of visiting his elderly sister. While going 55 mph and in his own lane, a drunk driver headed in the other direction crashed into him near Kissimmee, Florida and he died after being cut out of his station wagon and airlifted to Orlando Regional Medical Center.
I never got a chance to say goodbye to him, but I know he was proud of me. From time to time when I was covering an event for the newspaper I was working for, I’d spot him unexpectedly while he watched me interview a football player after a high school game or in the stands at a college basketball game I had been assigned to write about.
When I submitted my college admissions application, it had originally listed my major as physical education. I wanted to be a basketball coach but was shocked when I arrived at college to discover that I was registered for numerous journalism classes. I thought there certainly must be some sort of mistake, so I asked to see my original application and found that before signing it as my parent and mailing it for me to the school, my father had erased “Physical Education” as my college major and replaced it with “Journalism.” It was there in his unique handwriting for all to see.
I decided to mention it to him on the phone that weekend when I called home. He laughed and said, “father knows best.” I didn’t press the issue because after my first few classes of “Journalism 101,” it seemed like something I was good at, and it changed my life.
The conversation with my father took place more than 53 years ago and I am still in awe that he had the foresight to envision a lengthy career in journalism for me. He’s definitely someone that I’d like to see again someday and to say thanks. <
No comments:
Post a Comment