Billy
You could normally find him at the corner of Company Street and Market, sleeping fitfully in the doorway of the old theater, or, hanging out at The Lighthouse Missionary hoping for a hearty meal. Sometimes you’d see him around town. No one knew when he arrived, where he came from, or any details about his past. Actually, no one even knew his real name, everyone just called him Billy. He was one of Christiansted’s many homeless.
Even on a tropical island, living on the streets can be pretty challenging. Food wasn’t so much an issue because the people at The Lighthouse were pretty generous. He might not get a meal every day, but he ate regularly enough. The real challenge was to not get sick and to not get hurt. Many of the others on the street were sick already and some of them were pretty aggressive and angry. Fights would break out sometimes for no reason at all. There were many other dangers too. It was imperative to always be constantly aware and to trust no one. Billy learned early that it was best to keep a low profile and stay in the background.
That wasn’t that hard. Billy was almost invisible anyway. Most people would walk right past him, almost stepping right over him, without even acknowledging his existence. Oh, they saw him; they just preferred to act as if they didn’t. If he tried to approach them, they’d cross the street to get out of his way or angrily tell him to stay back. He was bigger than average and black as black can be. He was filthy dirty. He looked frightening. Most people took one look at his ragged coat and disheveled appearance and kept as far away as possible. Some even threatened him. Therefore, as a general rule, Billy tried to stay clear of ‘most people’.
It’s a lonely life being homeless. Billy was social by nature, and this solitary life was getting harder every day. He hadn’t chosen to live on the streets, he’d just wound up there. He didn’t even know how it had happened. Sometimes Billy dreamed about what it might be like to have a home. He especially liked the idea of having and being someone’s friend; someone to love and to be loved by. That seemed pretty unlikely. His future seemed hopeless. You could tell by the way he walked that Billy was losing his will to live.
One Thursday everything changed for Billy. He was snoozing under the Flamboyant tree across from Holy Cross Church. He was feeling particularly down and depressed and he wasn’t paying any attention to his surroundings. He didn’t notice the man until he had already sat down on the nearby bench. The man looked right at Billy. He looked right past the mangy coat and built up dirt. He paid no attention to Billy’s size or appearance. He looked right into Billy’s eyes. Billy looked bravely back. Reflected there they each saw themselves. They saw loneliness and pain and the need for a friend. They knew immediately that they were meant for each other. Billy got up, padded over to the man’s side and laid his head in Mister’s lap. Mister reached down and stroked Billy’s ears. He spoke softly; “You’re a good dog, Billy. I think I’ll take you home with me. “
Mister and Billy have been best friends, inseparable, ever since.
******************************
My Mother - Eulogy - I wrote this , and its kind of like a story of my Mom - for her service. I love re-reading it now and then in her honor. She'd of liked knowing that.
******************************
My Mother - Eulogy - I wrote this , and its kind of like a story of my Mom - for her service. I love re-reading it now and then in her honor. She'd of liked knowing that.
Good Afternoon and Thank You for coming.
I am here today to join my brothers and my sister in fullfilling our mothers final wish; to be re-united with her much loved husband, our father, Lee. Our mother had a long and interesting life and it is my honor to be here today, to say a few words about the woman she was, and to celebrate her life and her legacy.
What will I say to you now about Mom? You knew her. She was a strong, stubborn, feisty, and loyal woman. She was funny, fun-loving, adventurous, intelligent, honest and forgiving. She was hard-working and hard headed, but she was also practical and she was a planner. Dad may have been the dreamer, but Mom was the one who could figure out how to make those dreams come true. There were many struggles, financial… emotional… and physical… It seems times were often tough for the Eaves family and tough times require tough people. Mom was certainly tough.
She led an enormously daring life for a woman of her era and it was not an easy life. It may have been enfatuation that took her from Oklahoma to Oregon the first time, but still … it was daring. To see your husband go off to war, took strength.. even more so when you have a young son and one on the way. Daring to leave everything behind and move your family west and away from everything secure. Daring to face the day, and find a way to laugh… when you’ve just lost your life’s inheritance and are bankrupt with 7 little mouths to feed. Daring to pack up, leave your older children behind and fly off to live alone in the Orient… just to be closer to the man you love. Daring to start over so many times and to survive so much loss.
If you didn’t know her well, you would think maybe she was a bit too tough… she was outspoken, maybe a little too harsh at times. She spoke her mind most of the time and if you were on her proverbial “ list “, you knew it. Mom was quite proud of being a red-head and she had the temper to go with her red hair. I admit that her tough side would often enfuriate me, and even more often, embarrass me. I often wished she would have been a little less tough.. maybe more the stereo- typical motherly or ‘Grandmotherly’ type, but… not Mom… she wasn’t sweet or dotting or dainty. She didn’t know how to be those things. Afterall, this is Mom we are talking about here. Life dealt her more than her fair share of hardships.
I like to think of Moms toughness as kind of her protective outer layer. Some people never got past that outer layer. But those of us that did found underneath a loving woman who cherished , above all else, her family. If you knew her, if you knew her well… you know that nothing was more important to her than her family. She was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother. Her family was her most treasured possession. While in Thailand she wrote a poem that I will forever wish I had a copy of. I can’t remember the poem, but I’ll always remember one line, a line that was her answer for what she was thankful for… that line was:
Seven loving children, and a man named Lee.”
She was thankful for a man named Lee. Our Father. Mom loved our father, her husband. She loved him from the first day she met him till the day that she died. He wasn’t always an easy man to love, and loving him did not make for an easy life for her. ….. They worked through some rough times, they survived some tough times, and they worked hard to build a good life together for themselves and for their children. Ultimately, I know that their marriage was one of love and mutual respect. Mom adored him. When Dad died, Mom was never quite the same. She missed him. She needed him. They were life partners and it was hard for her to go on without him. I know that, in her final days, she got so much joy and comfort from the knowledge that today would come, that they would soon be back together , that she would join him. Even facing her death, Mom joked as she laughed and told Donna and I about how she guessed she had probably made him wait long enough for her, that he was probably stomping his foot and wondering what was taking her so damn long. She told us she was ready to join him. (Smile). Mom loved Dad.
If Dad was Mom’s partner in life, then Mom’s children were her pride and joy. Mom cherished her children and was extremely proud of each and every one of them, of the adults they had become and of the families that they had created. In a letter to my sister in 1999, mom wrote these words… her own words… which I think sum up her love for her children. She wrote:
“I want you to know that I consider my children my Life’s greatest accomplishment, and none of you can possibly know how very proud of you I am. Although you may have been my “brats” as kids, you are so great as grown adults that my appreciation’s cup is running over with joy. I would stand you all up against anybody’s kids, anywhere. Your mother is fully satisfied with all of your accomplishments. I always felt as though if we stood together as a unit, we could do anything. I still do. For there are twice as many of us as there are in a normal family and that means we have twice the power, twice the love and twice the endurance. “
Those are her words and I think they speak volumes about how she felt about her children.
I am so proud of my Mother. I admire the woman she was. The challenges she faced. The choices she made. I’m happy to have known her not just as a mother, but as my friend too, and as a woman who , as she might put it, made a silk purse out of a sows ear of a life. I think Mom was satisfied in the end. There were things she would have liked to have done differently. There were chapters of her life she may have wished she could have re-written… but, ultimately she was proud of her accomplishments and the person SHE was. She loved her husband and knew that he too loved her. She raised her children and was happy for them and proud of herself for having created them. She could look back on her own life and be proud of her own actions, choices, and accomplishments. She could hold her head up high and know that she had lived her life well. Hopefully, each of us will be so fortunate.
So, today we lay her to rest with our father. We fulfill her wishes. Her legacy is the family she created and the families those families will continue to create. I will miss her. But, she won’t really ever be that far away. When I need my mother, she’ll be right here, in my heart.
Each of us has a treasure chest of memories of our mother. Our hearts and minds are full of fun memories of times past. We may each remember different things, or we may even remember the same things differently, but each of us has plenty of “family” stories to tell. I know I do. And, I know that for the rest of my own years on this earth, I will think of her often and I will remember things about her that I might have thought forgotten. Most of those memories will make me smile or laugh. She loved to laugh, even in the hardest of times. I hope we can all remember her today… and laugh a little. She’d like that.
The last year of Mom’s life, she wrote her final poem. Deanna and I included it in the program and I think Mom would like us all to consider it her last bit of advice to each and every one of us. The poem is called life and I will share it with you now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
(Written and read (between sobs and tears) at the graveside memorial service for Avis Alice Eaves , by her daughter Laura Ellen (Eaves) Ballard). March, 21, 2009.
