Author: admin

I moved softly into 2023. Completely unprepared for the new year, still wandering, and mourning quietly and privately all that I’d lost in 2022. Who am I hung over me, with role of cherished ‘grandbaby’ gone forever, while I aimlessly feathered an empty nest after the last little chick flew away with summer.

But they carried me through, out of the old year and into the new, the soaring little chicks home on winter break. Wearing silly hats with flickering lights, we sipped sake while we chopped and measured. Cheers to a new recipe! Somewhere between the twerk lesson and the simmer of lasagna soup, I remembered how to laugh.

It’s no secret that food heals. And laughter heals. Letting go heals. Sake heals. And I’m convinced that a good twerk lesson in the kitchen heals, especially when the teacher is your daughter. Because daughters heal.

Three months in and I’m still not sure what 2023 is bringing. Except maybe spring. Sweet buds and cherry blossoms are busy fulfilling their promises. Forty-nine and holding, I put one foot in front of the other. Still gently, but more confidently now. Realizing that I don’t have to have it all figured out. In fact, maybe it’s best that I don’t.

I don’t know who I am anymore. But I’m open. Wide open. There are things I haven’t done yet. Places I haven’t been. There are dreams I haven’t dreamt yet. And great loves I haven’t loved…

So many books are unwritten.

I’m showing up here again, after a year, in this little space, my sacred place. With the only thing I have to share right now. No epiphanies. No great wisdom. No answers. Just, thanks to Instagram, the recipe for some damn good lasagna soup…

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cl2N-hmMcXG/?igshid=ZTlkMDEyOTY=

I’ve been on hiatus, been immersed in so many writing projects I haven’t had time to blog. But I find myself here now sharing heartbreaking news. I lost my precious Grandad on Valentine’s Day. Delivering his eulogy, while incredibly difficult, was the last thing I could do for him. Of course, I didn’t write a conventional eulogy, but I’m not conventional and neither was he. Since so many people have reached out to me about it, wanting me to share it, I have decided to post a transcript of the eulogy here. For my Texas crew who knew and loved him, for my New York crew who felt like they knew and loved him because I never stopped talking about him. Thanks to everyone who has loved me through this. I can feel you. And I’m forever grateful.

…………………………………………………….

February 19, 2022

Boyd, Texas

Good Morning, Everyone.

I’m Nicky. Jackie and Janice Read’s granddaughter, Gwende’s daughter, Cindy and Jackie Loyd’s niece, and Dayne and Grant’s cousin.

In Jackie and Janice Read’s house, everyone is family. So in this place, in this space, we’re all family. And as such, from where you are, please send me lots of love, because that is how I’m going to get through this.

Here we go…

Everyone loves Jackie Read.

Right?

Yes.

And everyone has a Jackie Read story.

Right?

Or several…

I’ve been holding on to this one. Now, I can finally tell it. It was this past summer, around August, so that would be about six months ago. (Just before his 89^th birthday, so that makes him 88.) I’m at my mom’s house, here in town. It’s early, because everyone knows Jackie Read is up at the crack of dawn, right? Because something needs mowing or mulching, or watering, or planting, or fixing. Just anything. My cell phone rings. I’m barely awake. I see it’s him, and I answer, “Good Morning!” He says, “I believe we’ll ride up to Decatur this morning.” 

“We?” I ask, while I’m still in my nightgown. He says, “Yeah, I believe we’ll go up to ‘Walmarts’ and do a little shopping this morning.” At that point, I’m worried, because I’m like… My grandad would never wait for me to wake up and ask me to ride to Walmart with him. He’s way too independent for that.

“Are you OK? Is everything OK?” My concern is audible. He knows the gig is up. “Well… it’s Jackie Loyd. He called a-checkin’ on me this mornin’. Said I need to call you to ride to Decatur with me. He’s a-checkin’ up on me to see how I’m drivin’. He wants you to tell on me.” My first thought is, Great, Uncle Jackie! Great! You think his driving is questionable, and you want ME to ride to Decatur with him?”

Well, I have a special relationship with my Grandad. I’m not a kid. Aunt Cindy, Mom, and Uncle Jackie get to be the bad guys. I’m a ‘grand-baby’ (along with Dayne and Grant), as he still calls me at 48 years old. See, I’m the good guy. So, I say, “Well, do YOU think you need me to ride to Decatur with you?” “Naaah. Naaaah,” he says. “Well, then what are we gonna’ do,” I ask. He lets out his trademark chuckle and says, “You’ll have to say you went with me.”

So, then I say, “I don’t know about that, Grandad. I’m kinda’ scared of Uncle Jackie. Aren’t you?” He says, “He thinks I am, but I’m not.” I say, “Well, didn’t you just drive to Azle day before yesterday, and you were ok?” He said yes, so I told him to go ahead, be careful, and hurry back. He says, “And you’ll tell him you went?” with that little chuckle. I say, “I don’t know. Just hurry back. I’ll call you in a bit to make sure you’re home safe.” So we hang up, and I go about my morning.

A couple of hours later, I call his cell. “We’re back! We’re back!” he answers. So relieved, I say, “Oh, great, who went with you?” He says, “YOU DID!” And he laughed, and he laughed, and he laughed.

(Uncle Jackie, I couldn’t wait to tell you that one.)

To be that sharp, to be able to drive to Decatur and get your own groceries, to have children and grandchildren watching and working together to make sure you keep your independence (but don’t hurt anybody), as long as possible, to be that quick-witted and able to deliver a punch line like that ‘til the very end. What more can we ask for?

Jackie La Moiene was born to Maggie Viola and Jack Read on November 13, 1932. He was born at home on a little farm at Keeter, the only brother to twin sisters Teenie Ray and Ara Faye, and to Shirley Ann. I can still hear them call him, “Brother.” He was adored.

His daddy was a farmer. His mother was the valedictorian of her class, and later worked as the secretary for Pleasant Grove Baptist Church for 47 years. Jack and Maggie V traded what they grew off of that little farm outside of town.

Just about a year ago, I rescued Grandad from a short stay at Azle hospital. (Of course, he had to tell me exactly how to get home from there because he knew all the shortcuts.) Driving down highway 730 to Boyd, we passed the Keeter cutoff. I pointed at the road that takes you to his old homeplace and said, “Grandad, what was the road like back in the day when you used to ride your horse to town?”

“Oh, it was kindly gravelly, and just nothing, really.” I said, “Well, how long did it take you to get to Boyd?” He said, “Oh, about thirty minutes.” His eyes drifted off to a place I couldn’t see, remembering. As we got closer to Boyd, he pointed at 730 and said, “I’d ride Pinto into town and we’d race right here.” I said, “Who’d you race? Junior Williams?” “No, Junior didn’t have a horse,” he said. “Charlie Wolfe?” I asked. “No, his horse wasn’t any good,” he claimed.

I said, “Well did you win?” He said, “I sure did. Never lost. All the old men in town would come out and bet on us, and I won every time. They were so happy, they’d all take me in to town and buy me ice cream and ‘sodie’ pops.” Grinning ear-to-ear, he said nobody could beat him and Pinto. “Where did you get Pinto?” I asked. He told me that his daddy had traded for him, and they had bottle fed him, and no horse was faster than Pinto.

Grandad was proud of his first car. It was a 40 model Ford that was well-kept having belonged to a school teacher. He said, “Daddy wouldn’t let me get a car on credit. He made me save up enough to pay cash, and he told me what car to buy.” Simple life lessons that he carried throughout his life.

Jackie married the love of his life, Janice Marie Bridges, on July 13, 1953. He was a country boy and she was a town girl. Soon after they were married, Jackie left for Korea. He was a tank driver for the United States Army. In fact, when Gwende took him to Hawaii years later to see the whales in Maui, he was unimpressed, announcing it was “no big deal”, he’d already seen it. “Where, Daddy, where did you see this?” she asked. “On the boat to KO-rea. Whales. Big whales.”

Jackie may have been far away, but Janice wasn’t alone for long because Cindy came into the world to keep her company until he came home. When Jackie came home, they settled in to raising their young family. Then came Gwende. And finally, Jackie Loyd. They built their first little house in town, but they accidentally bought the wrong paint. When they came home from work the day that the house got painted, they saw that it was pink. So they became known as the Reads that live in the pink house.

By that time, the family grocery store had grown into Read and Bridges, when Jackie and Janice went into business with her parents Lonzo and Belva. “Lonzo told me that he’d put in $5000, and I’d put in $5000, and we’d be 50/50 partners. And he kept up with it and made sure I paid it.” Jackie and Lonzo were a team until Lonzo passed away in 1965. When I asked my Grandad about his relationship with Grandaddy Lonzo, he thought for a long, long time. Then he looked at me, and with so much love he said, “He was my buddy.”

Jackie was a colorful, integral part of Boyd, Texas. Quite frankly, he was a character.

Not just a grocer, he played pharmacist when a mother called in the middle of the night needing medicine for her sick child. He’d open up the store and make sure she had whatever she needed.

Before these high-tech fancy alarm systems came along, he was an engineer. Jackie fashioned his own grocery store alarm with a piece of fishing line fastened to the back doors, running it through the ceiling tiles, down to the store telephone, or ‘landline’ as it’s now known. He would dial his home phone number of 2-7-7-7, then strategically place a cork in the rotary phone to hold the very last seven, before it turned back to home. The idea was that if someone broke in and pulled the doors to the store open, it would pull the cork out so that the phone would call him at home. Having left the receiver off the hook, suspended, he could hear what was going on in the store. It worked. On more than one occasion, he received the call and could hear everything going on inside the store, and would race to town, literally guns blazing. Jackie Loyd recalls being a little boy glued to the telephone, on the party-line with the rest of Boyd, listening to gunfire, scared that something had happened to Daddy.

The kids also recall the second phone that was in their little home in town, the fire phone. For the Boyd Volunteer Fire Department. Gwende recalls hating that phone and being scared every time it rang. Because that meant fire somewhere and Daddy had to go.

There are just so many Jackie Read stories, Ya’ll.

Right?

I mean we all have one.

We won’t even go into the homemade wine stored in Maw Maw’s cellar. When he went to check on his prize wine, he found all the corks blown off, a wine bomb had blown up the cellar. Or those beautiful acre gardens that he planted, going all over town giving his produce away.

Jackie and Janice were social, always the life of the party. And they loved to dance. They even took up ballroom dancing and convinced everyone else to, also.

Jackie and Janice loved to travel. They traveled to Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Ruidoso, cruised the Caribbean and Alaska, and most recently frequented Canton, Texas for campouts in their travel trailers with their very best friends.

In later years, they started their own hot shot business, J and J Couriers. And took calls at any time of day or night, driving all over the United States making deliveries. I think they knew everyone’s life story at every Chickfila in the continental U.S., having adopted so many people across the country, only having known each person for just that short moment that they spent making a delivery, but genuinely loving the souls who crossed their path.

Grandad was a giver. He had this way of making people feel special. People loved him, with his little grin, his little chuckles, his hugs, and his genuine interest in them. Add Nano to the equation with her sweet, sweet spirit, and her soft way, and it was pure magic. We often wonder how many people we’ll never know that they loved and helped along the way, leaving flying twenties and flying hundreds in their wake, to make someone’s day, to make their load just a little bit lighter.

A few years back, I was having dinner at our famous little spot here in town, Gogo Gumbo. I had finished my meal with my friend and asked for the check. The waiter informed me that our bill had already been paid. He motioned to a couple. Recognizing the man as a dear friend of Grandad’s from my childhood, I went over and thanked him and sat for a moment. His wife told me they were happy to buy my meal. She told me that she remembered, growing up, that my Grandad had fed people out of the grocery store when they couldn’t afford groceries. He offered credit when they needed a little help. And when they needed more than a little help, he made sure they didn’t go without on his watch, regardless of ability to pay. THAT story means the world to me. 

And if I stood up here and told every story like that, that I’ve been told, about how he touched people, about what he did for people, he’d be so, so mad at me. Because he would want this to be short and sweet. Mostly short.

Grandad was a quiet man. He was not petty. And he did not gossip. Jackie Read would listen patiently to a story, and when the person was completely done he would slowly nod his head yes, or no. That meant he agreed with you, or he didn’t. End of story. It didn’t go any further than that.

Jackie loved his children and grandchildren and was incredibly proud of them. He loved going to the jewelry store to see Jackie Loyd and Delisa, and loved taking little gifts down there to everyone in the store. He proudly told everyone that Cindy was a schoolteacher. And he loved talking investment and property with Gwende. Something as simple as what went across her desk each day was always interesting to him.

He had his own unique relationship with each and every one of us. Dayne, I popped in to check on him one evening and he was grinning. He had a story. “Guess who came to see me today? Dayne! He sat with me for a good long while out there in the garden. I was mowing. And he drank a cold beer with me.” (Keep in mind he was mowing until just a few weeks ago.) Dayne, he just thought you hung the moon. He really, really did.

And Grant, I don’t know how many times he told me about your new house! Seriously.  He did not have a memory problem. He just wanted to talk about it THAT MUCH. He would sit there and just daydream about what it might look like, and how you would feel moving in, and what your life was going to be like. He loved you and was just so excited to see you out there in the world.

Al, Miah, and Sis, he wanted to hear about your work and your school. Every little detail. And he would just grin listening to stories about you. Al, the bank stories were his favorite. Miah, he loved hearing about your three jobs at once. (Because Grandad loved to work.) Sis, our little rebel, he always liked to hear what you were ‘up to next’.

And Max, picking you up from school here at Boyd for that short amount of time that you were here was the highlight of his days. (Him being the first car sitting right there at the door to the high school waiting for you, to your horror, was proof of that.)

Jackie Loyd… his namesake. He absolutely adored you and was so, so proud of you. Announcing to everyone, everywhere, that you were his baby. “My baby”, he would say.

Aunt Cindy, goodness! “Cindy’s coming.” “Cindy’s bringing me homemade ice cream.” Cindy’s bringing me this. Cindy’s bringing me that. “Cindy, cindy, cindy”… he would say. He looked so forward to your visits, and enjoyed his one-on-one time with you sitting out there in Nano’s chair. I think it was as close to having her there as he could get.

And Mom, or ‘Mommy’ as he began to call you, he waited on you, every evening. He relied on you, and he trusted you. You had to have some hard conversations with him toward the end. Even though he was stubborn sometimes, he knew you were right, and he respected you because he knew you had his back, and that you would make sure, no matter what, that he would live EVERY SINGLE DAY that belonged to him.

As for me, I was his quiet sidekick, preferring to sit at his feet and pull out a box of old pictures, just the two of us, watching the Grand Ole Opry, and learn as much as I could from him. Quite honestly, I’ve studied him since I was a little bitty girl. Being raised by a single mom, he’s the only reason I even know what a father is supposed to look like. And he knew it. So he did his best for me. And I’m so, so grateful.

My Grandad loved music. Good old country music. Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Boxcar Willie. He did not like John Conlee, though. Because he swore that HE was wearing rose colored glasses before that song ever came out. You could go out there to his house, any time, day or night, and hear country music playing.

Yes, my Grandad loved music. And I loved sitting between him and my Nano in the pickup. Him driving. Country music on the radio. And her singing along with her soft soprano. I knew it as a child. I know it as grown woman. It was heaven.

Who’s gonna’ fill their shoes? Who’s gonna’ stand that tall? Who’s gonna’ play the Opry and the Wabash Cannonball? Who’s gonna’ give their heart and soul, to get to me and you? Lord, I wonder, who’s gonna’ fill their shoes?

Y’all know who that is? It’s one of his favorites. The Great George Jones.

Who is gonna’ fill their shoes? Who? That’s simple. They taught us everything they know. We will. We will.

Relationships. People. Selflessness. Love. Abiding love. They knew the secret. At the end of the day, it’s about how you leave people. It’s about how someone feels when you leave the room. We are the greatest tribute to their great love story. Their legacy. So we will. We have to.

One final Jackie Read story… It’s a close, personal, family story that has always been told. He wasn’t there when Cindy was born. Like I mentioned earlier, he was in Korea. He was there when Gwende and Jackie Loyd each made their debut, he was even there for my birth, and Dayne’s and Grant’s. But he missed out on that moment with Cindy, that special time, that instant and lasting bond that happens at birth.

So, how poetic, how incredibly beautiful, that she was the one who was there with him in his final moments. Playing music, talking, and sharing his peaceful passage. What a gift to be able to make up that time. What a beautiful, beautiful gift. What more can we ask for than to leave this place full circle, after a long, rich life? Nothing left unsaid, nothing left undone.

Of course, in true Jackie Read fashion, he couldn’t just leave us on any old day. He had to leave with fanfare. Valentine’s Day. We knew where he was headed. Because he wouldn’t have wanted Janice to spend Valentine’s Day with anyone else but him.

So, when you drive past that house out there on 730, or past the old Read and Bridges here in town, or when you turn onto Keeter cutoff, remember YOUR Jackie Read story, or several, maybe even give him a little honk. Buy somebody’s groceries, give someone a little help out there, make their load a little lighter. Leave them well. And tell them it’s from Jackie Read.

Family, Nano and Grandad would be so happy to see you all. Take care of each other out there.

And Grandad, we got this. We’ll do everything we can to fill those shoes. Give Nano a kiss. Tell her how much we miss her. We’ll see y’all when we get there.

This birthday. On my own.

“It’s not a good thing,” the voice on the other end of the phone says. “To share your birthday with someone for so long. It’s not a good thing when you get left behind.” I know it’s coming from a place of concern, a place of love, and a place of being uncomfortable with the pain on my end.

Funny how I thought I was pulling it off.

I am unable to respond. I let the tears fall, unable to utter anything at all, my energy focused on suppressing the audible cry that threatens to escape. I just want off the phone.

Because no one will ever know. No one.

It’s all mine.

This day. Where larger-than-life, pure and perfect love crashes into life-changing, heartbreaking pain. For I was yours and you were mine. And this days was ours. Until it wasn’t. And yet it is. Will always be. Wherever you are…

Do you know that I still love you so? And that I remember everything? Every little thing.

Gratitude. I’ll be safe here, until I can step over into tomorrow.

I feel her. I hear her. I even smell her, still. I close my eyes and I’m at her feet, her hand in my hair. Knowing what’s coming. She knows too. “You’ve had your grandparents longer than most people,” she tells me. Preparing me for now. But it still doesn’t help, no more than it did back then.

Ah, love… how beautiful you are. But how painful you can be. And yet without you moving hearts and making ways, what else is there? Nothing worth having.

“Where’s my hat? And my glasses?” My eyes tell the tale. July 10th, I’m a mess. But l’ll take it. Damn it, love, I’m still all in. So I move to meet the day. Anyway.

“I’d like to have coffee before we go home, ” she said.

So now we sit on the street in Little Italy. She watches the people go by. I watch her.

And just like that… she is grown. The shift. Organic. Tangible. A tilt in the subtlest fashion. Where conversation is perfectly level. Perfectly. And you find yourself communing in a most beautiful way with the soul who passed through you, the sacred portal, who you swore to protect, realizing that she is completely autonomous and standing on her own before you.

Aware. Alive. Fierce.

She doesn’t need you anymore. Not like that. Sadness makes an appearance but there is no room. No seat at the table. There are too many bags, evidence of a day well spent. The perfect dress from Little Russia, treasures from Chinatown, Thai leftovers.

And so it is just the two of you, drinking in the city with each swallow of warm mocaccino. I meet my daughter where she is. And I honor her passage. Complete. Whole. Each of us sitting in our very own power. Secure in the divine order. Checking our Instagrams.

Mocaccino and macaroons for two…

“Why are women your age growing their hair out and wearing it like that?” studying me, she asked with a mixture of curiosity and disgust from a time-honored place of cut, comb, coif, and sprayed perfection that I simply cannot relate to.

My hair is long. It is wild. With streaks of grey. And it offers no apologies or explanations.

Hundreds of responses went through my mind in an instant, but with the utmost respect and deference to my sassy great aunt, I simply replied with a mixture of love and quiet confidence.

“Because we don’t give a damn.”

Feeling nothing but compassion, affection, and forgiveness, I grasp and appreciate that place where her judgement dwells. Because, my sisters, for all that they have been through, we are free.

So many roads out there. So many directions we can go, and so many choices we can make. Wherever you go, whatever you do… Choose love, people. It lasts.

Four pounding heartbeats and laughter much too loud, tucked away in a corner, remembering, they anchor me. Never realizing how close I am to joining her. Time stops and wounds close as the clock ticks on 46.

“My Dear, you are here. Welcome, welcome. However did you arrive with such grace?” So quietly and sweetly you settle about me. Bringing a sparkle to the morning and a melody to the day, such companionship and warmth.

Wonder. The heart of a child. Magic. The feeling of youth. Love. The gift of age. 47. And I am left with a chance. A moment. To love them all. To live. And learn. To feel. And grow. To listen. And speak. To experience the light of day and the wind of time on my face. Breathing. While she rides the clouds and circles the moon.

Mulberry is my typical route, leaving Chinatown bound for Union Square. Passing through Little Italy, I always make a promise to myself that I will stop at the cafe on the corner of Broome and Mulberry. Because there is just something about Caffe Roma.

Toting my bag of treasures from Chinatown, beautiful weather sealed the deal. Today is the day I would keep the promises. Because sometimes, you just gotta’ stop and do something beautiful.

“Mocaccino.”

I chose a seat under the Audrey Hepburn mural, respectfully distant, but across from a masked man. Exchanging pleasantries gave way to conversation, and I learned that Vincent was looking after the cafe for his father who was distancing himself due to the threat of COVID-19.

I discovered that Caffe Roma has been in the family since 1881, that it had first been a bar before it became a cafe in the 1950s. I also learned that Vincent has a new puppy who eats everything off of the ground, just like my Charlotte. And that he loves the cold. Of course, business has been slow since the pandemic. But both of us admitted to looking on the bright side of such difficult times, and confessed to appreciating and enjoying the city minus the tourists. Trading stories, I realized what it was about Caffe Roma.

History. Humanity. And good coffee. It was the server who so graciously received me from the street. The barrista who took the time to discuss and prepare my coffee to perfection. And Vincent, a very pleasant conversationalist who reminded me of a certain truth that always seems to find me on the road…

We are all connected.

And exploring that connection is the highlight of my travels, whether near, far, or somewhere, anywhere, in between.

With indoor dining shutting down on Monday due to rising COVID-19 case numbers, restaurant and cafe owners are scrambling to make the most of their outdoor spaces. Livelihoods are at stake, businesses hang in the balance between creatively staying open and closing up shop for good, and futures are uncertain. And yet while we are in the throes of turbulent times, even perilous times, there was something comforting about sitting there on the street today with my mocaccino and Vincent.

It was simple, grounding. It was an anchor on rough, rough seas. There was something comforting about sitting there at Caffe Roma, like sitting at the feet of your elegant grandmother, whose stoicism gives you courage by association, whose eye is on you all the time so harm won’t dare come near, and whose wisdom hangs over you, quietly, gently, accompanying you on your way…

Cheers.

Take care out there.

Saturdays, staring out windows. Lost. In the words. Stories. Poetry. Ever dreaming of this right here. Dreaming so hard, I could see it. Even when I couldn’t, for the tears. Far, far from here. If I could go back. Just for a moment. I would tell you, Little Girl. You were never not going to be here.