As a young girl, Nita Sue was a popular, fun, darling, and outgoing high school student, as her family and friends had described to me long ago when I first met her. She loved music and she loved dancing, and she was good at it! One of the most popular dancers in her class, in fact. Life was too serious to be taken seriously.
She always had a job and worked hard at whatever she was doing, typically clerical and bookkeeping positions, as she was good with numbers. A natural people person, she was great at customer service. By the time I’d met her, she had been married and divorced and her three children were grown and had family of their own.
And she was free to travel often when one of her cousins had a girls’ trip in mind, which was usually several times a year. Most frequently it was to be with another favorite cousin and friends of hers, of which I was fortunate to be included at the time. Trips might be to hang out at a second home down south or a vacation home up north, or to get in the car to run over and see more family in Arkansas or Louisiana.
Burning up the roads and whiling away the hours, I think I earned a PhD in “how to relax” being together with many women, slightly senior to me, who had had their jobs or careers, raised their families, and had time to just enjoy a bit of life. There was always music on the car trips and most of the time I was driving because I loved it.
Singing old songs from the hits of the ‘50s–‘70s, up and down the highways was filled with laughter and “remember when’s” time and time again. Just hearing the girls reminiscing was a joy for me. Their stories were so vivid that I felt like I’d been there myself. And then I got to meet some of their childhood friends and eventually the entire family, so the stories really came to life.
Occasionally, another cousin and his wife joined in the fun to visit more family in the “party wagon,” if you can call infinite stops for Dr. Pepper and convenience store snacks a party. We certainly did.
There may have been some happy times spent in a “few” casinos during those days. Well, to be fair, when we went to casinos, it was typically to see the musical acts performing there, because these days that is where all our classic rock faves would be in concert. And if you happened to have to stop at the slot machines along the way, well so be it! That’s our story and we’re sticking to it!
Occasionally, she’d join me for concerts at The Woodlands. I’ll never forget when we heard Il Divo, together with another friend, from the third row of the front section, and she and her cousin were with me for my concert of a lifetime in the late 1990s, with Christopher Cross and Dan Fogelberg sharing the bill at The Woodlands. Seats in the seventh row provided perfect purview for this iconic show.
She was a good friend to me and treated me like family all the time I knew her. When she came to town for a routine health procedure, she stayed with me, and the next day, she made sure she stopped by to see my Mom, who was in a senior skilled nursing section briefly for three months prior to her passing. She brought a thoughtful gift to Mom, who so enjoyed the visit.
During my first trip to Chicago, I stayed overnight at the airport to be able to catch a 6am flight in, and she told me to be sure and eat at the particular restaurant where her son, Darron, was working, and though he had not met me yet, when he did, he made me feel as welcome as the day is long, southern gentleman, and just seeing a familiar face, one you’d even not met, smiling at you and wishing you a great time on my business venture, I fumble as I try to explain how comforting it was…like I wasn’t alone in a vast sea of travelers while I was on my way to establish new venture.
The “you’re not alone” part is the key. When Mom died Nita Sue, many of her cousins, several of aunts and uncles burned up the highway to all be here with me in my most important time of need. I never felt alone. Surrounded by love, whether their names were on my family tree, I was able to go through those days with confidence, faith, strength, and more, because of their love. It’s just how this unique family (on both sides) that began in Arkansas and relocated mostly to Texas is about.
As a grandmother, Nita Sue loved her grandchildren and they loved her. One of her granddaughters loved reading and so every night before she went to sleep, she would call “Nana” and read to her for 30-45 minutes. What that simple act says is that a grandparent is the one person who delights in the time the child has to give and the child appreciates that gift. She always had the latest news of the grandchildren. Her son Darron brought her special love and care all of her life, and he was both best friend in addition to her son.
Her brother Troy and his sister were virtually best friends all of their lives. For me, it was so special to see a brother and sister so respectful and caring of one another, not pushing each other to words, ever, but so often coming together to care for their parents, which was a full-time project for both siblings for the majority of the past two decades actually.
Their parents’ final wish was to live in their home until they died—no matter what—and few people realize what a burden that can be to the children to have to maintain and finance and facilitate. Given their father’s unwilling adamant nature to yield to reason or logic, there was no Plan B available to either of them.
Dear old dad lived to be 100, and their parents’ marriage lasted 75 years; their Mom and Dad’s passing happened within four short months of each other. It was more than a labor of love that she and her brother honored their parents throughout their lifetimes. It was superhuman, as they battled their own losses in life, and it surely cost them falling a few steps behind in their own health doing so. Nita battled COPD for over a decade, but still she made them her priority, spelled by her brother’s stepping in for the other shift, all of which lasted until just recently (2019).
Other adult children would have just given up and said, “I can’t do this anymore. It’s costing me my health.” And no one would have blamed them. Sometimes you don’t just get what you want. Sometimes you get a gift you don’t deserve, because someone has strength of character that others can’t even hold a candle to. Sometimes, love supersedes personal needs each and every time.
During COVID we exchanged a few text messages and Facebook messages, but we all know that it was a time for friendships to be put to the test. Her big brother and her son were taking good care of her, she said. I knew she’d be all right and it was her birthday that brought me back to Earth. When I realized that her lovely photo on Facebook was “in memoriam,” my first thought was, “At last she can take a deep breath again.” She can dance, unencumbered, as long as she wants. As she is reunited with her family in Heaven, including her youngest brother who died 15 years ago, she is made whole, because family meant the world to her.
Time has flown so quickly since her passing that word had not reached me from any of the cousins. I see this all the time in my profession; someone thinks someone else has already told someone and yada yada. My feelings are not relevant or important here. The last thing I noticed brought another smile…the day of her passing? It was the exact same day that my mother passed away 16 years ago. Another cardinal flying across the sky to watch for…I’m grateful for her friendship and caring, and most of all for the gift of her time.
Magic Every Moment by Dan Fogelberg
"...On a high and windy island, I was gazing out to sea,When a long-forgotten feeling came and took control of me.p> It was then the clouds burst open, and the sun came pouring through.
When it hit those dancing waters, in an instant all eternity I knew.
There's so much we take for granted, there's so much we never say.
We get caught up in the motiosn of just living day to day.
We are fettered to the future, we are prisoners of the past
...And we never seem to notice
'till our lives have finally slipped right through our grasp.
There's magic every moment.
There's miracles each day.
There's magic every moment.
Oh, won't you let the music play?
Won't you let the music play?
You can see forever in a single drop of dew.
You can see that same forever if you look down deep inside of you.
There's a spark of the Creator in every living thing.
He respects me when I work, but He so loves me when I sing."
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