Bag of Bones

Guy Clark

He said, this old bag of bones ain’t really me
There’s a lot more standing here than what you see
He said my back is bending low but my spirits flying free
This old bag of bones ain’t really me  

Last week, Smokin Hot Love Biscuit and a handwritten letter drove to Knoxville. The letter’s recipient, the great Frank Bryant, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It’s early in the sucky A word and there are moments – days even – of clarity and lucidity. There are also times when Frank is lost in his mind – lost in his body – lost to keep track of simple items – lost to accomplish simple tasks – lost to those who love him.

For a while we consulted forecasts and checked in with Pat, (Frank’s wife,) watching for clear skies and safe mountain passage. Mostly we were waiting for the signal that Frank was having a good week. It’s a trip that SHLB both wanted and didn’t want to make, an internal summons that he did or didn’t have to respond to. That’s the thing about life and choices – free will shows up everywhere, mapping out the path to destiny.

It was difficult to see Frank, a former college athlete for UT, an avid kayaker and fly fisherman, atrophied to a place of unsteady fragility. He was a designer and inventor, founding Chota Outdoor Gear and leading a respected rep group for decades, influencing trends, dealers, the greater watersports industries – influencing SHLB.

Most everything about Frank comes in size large. He’s a big man. He dreamed big and accomplished big. He was SHLB’s boss, his mentor, his friend. He was the person that placed the framework for my husband to build his career and work ethic around. He was the person who modeled what it meant to have integrity, to be the consummate sales professional, to be loyal, what it meant to do things the right way and be competitive, what it meant to walk up with quiet fortitude and kick royal ass. I reap the rewards of being married to the man that Frank helped shape.

During the visit, laughter and tales of days gone by moved fluid around SHLB, Frank, and Pat. When Frank became stuck in a memory and lingered in a pause of recall, he said, “Don’t steal my story from me.” A frustrated request for patience, for grace, an ask for allowance as the details resurfaced to his memory in a time delay. It broke SHLB’s heart to see and hear that. Life is so expansive and seemingly everlasting until it isn’t – until the fading begins, erasing us back into ourselves.

As for the letter, the contents offered gratitude and appreciation to Frank for being Frank – for being the person who made the difference to so many. When you examine his life, his legacy, all that he created with busines, family, and friends, his wealth is immense, his impact beyond measure.

Pat narrated the letter aloud while SHLB and Frank soaked up the transfer of words and feelings in a state of peace and understanding shared by old friends. The message complete and real – spoken in raw emotion to the living, not bottled up as a too much, too late kind of orchestrated eulogy or inscribed epitaph.

I guess that the letter could have been mailed or read via Zoom or a phone called might have sufficed, but short cutting yields short dividends. It’s the very definition of shortchange. Driving a thousand miles roundtrip to say in person what you have gained from a lifelong mentor and friend is a short distance to travel in life’s great divide. Frank summed up SHLB’s visit in five words, “It was a good day.”

SHLB told me that Frank once explained to him why time moves faster as you get older. He described the continuum in relation to someone who might live to be one hundred. When age twenty-five, seventy five percent of life is still ahead of you, so it’s okay to blow a day or a week, because there’s still so much remaining. It’s understandable to procrastinate or dilly dally. When you get to be seventy-five, not so much. When something likes the big A comes calling, even less.

The possible ending doesn’t rewrite the story. Frank lived and still lives large and full. His mark is tattooed on those around him, and he has a letter, perhaps tucked in a drawer or pocket or special shelf that describes in loving, manly detail what he meant to someone who holds him dear.

When we moved into our house, there was a tree in our backyard. Wear and tear split the branches and its roots were causing foundation issues. Hurricane Florence and an interface with the roof of the man cave mandated the decision that it be removed. I love trees and I was so sad to say goodbye to the faithful, fractured plant.

In the springtime when I look out the kitchen window, I remember it blooming loud and proud with a little metal bird bath and wooden bench resting in its shady shroud. The fact that it lived to its prime and is now gone doesn’t reduce its existence or its beauty or the purpose it served on the planet.

As Frank faces the unknown days that Alzheimer’s might bring, though hundreds of miles away, I’m channeling his spirit, pausing with him as he searches for the words to tell what remains to be said in his story. The end isn’t how it always was – the mathematical equation of a life well lived rounding the river bend to the cumulative sum. Frank spent much of his life on moving water and may that offer restoration and comfort for the flow that knows no ceasing and merges into one – bigger than our own.