A few years after my Dad died, my Mom dated a few guys. I won’t call them gentlemen, because unfortunately, they weren’t. JD however, was different. Colonel Jack D. Stevens was a gentleman through and through. They met dancing and when my Mom decided it was time to sell her longtime home (the house my brother and I grew up in) and she moved into his longtime home.
JD had also lost his wife to illness so both of them knew how short life could be. (He treated her like a queen and wanted to get married, but my Mom was fiercely independent by this point and just didn’t see the need to.) Mom and JD only got about six years together before she succumbed to cancer, but they packed a lot into that time. They traded their dancing shoes for sneakers and traveled as much as possible for as long as she could.
What to call him? Boyfriend? Like many who are of advancing ages, that term often feels too HS. Guy Friend? Eh. Sounds way weirder even than Lady Friend. Lover? Um, that would be an emphatic N-O. Significant Other? Kinda makes it sound like her “others” (ie. loved ones) aren’t significant then? Partner? Hmm, yea, partner could work. Because that’s what they became; partners in life. In the mid-90s if I called him her partner though, they’d often express slight shock and then ask me what “her” name was. Glad it’s not the 90s anymore. For many reasons.
(My mom actually came to me in a dream last night and talk turned to JD – she said that he “became her best friend and that she hadn’t expected that” as she and my dad had never really for that for each other.)
When they started dating in the mid-90s, she was a blond, vivacious, tan woman who after several difficult years, finally felt like her life was in front of her again. She was more carefree than we’d seen her in years and she loved goofing off for his camera.
At the end, her long blonde hair turned to kinky gray, her skin pale and ravaged by chemo and her beautiful energy zapped just a few short years later. He was still there though and she still loved goofing off in front of his camera.
And when the end came for her, we were incredibly thankful she had someone like JD by her side. Anyone who’s taken care of a critically ill parent knows that it’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. It’s incredibly hard to now have the roles reversed and instead of her holding you close after puking when you were little and had the flu, it’s now you holding her, puking up green bile when she has a terminal illness. But JD is really the one who stepped up and took care of her, saving a lot of that from my brother and I. I shouldn’t even really say stepped up. It never ever seemed to be a question IF he’d be sticking by her side. He just did. He did it with honor and never let on how difficult it was for him, especially being a half decade older than her.
Six days after she passed away in the last hours of September 10th, 2001, JD stepped up once again. Half of our wedding guests couldn’t make it because of shut down air travel, including my best friend at the time, so my brother who going to escort me instead became my Man of Honor and JD walked me down the aisle to Bill. He then sat down next to what would have been my Mom’s chair, but now holding a single soft pink rose.
One of JD’s passions, besides flirting with waitresses, was genealogy. He loved the treasure hunt and thanks to him, we have an incredible, thorough family history on both my Mom’s and Dad’s sides. Five years after she passed away, he met up with us in her hometown of Huron, South Dakota on a 2006 summer vacation tour for my brother and I to see as many of her aging relatives as possible. Many were unable to travel to VA after her passing, but because she didn’t want one, we also didn’t have a memorial or funeral for her so there really was nothing to come to anyway.
JD didn’t stay single for long though and found another dancing partner. We were glad for that. It didn’t mean he cared less for my Mom. We know he did. On the 10th anniversary of her death, he “sent her flowers” on a memorial page he had set up for her and did so again on the 15th anniversary. I don’t think she was ever far from his thoughts, just like she’s never far from ours.
Of course we tried to stay in touch with him, but Time marches on and especially after we moved to Colorado in 2013, we hadn’t gotten to see JD in many years. The last we had heard from him was in 2018 when he simply emailed a photo with the subject line of “memories” (anyone who knew him, knew he was often a man of few words) of the garden memorial he had made for our Mom AND our Dad, after she died. He buried some of her ashes, along with my Dad’s and named his beautiful garden the “Kathy {maiden name} & Lyle Stitt Memorial Garden”. His garden and included them both, but that’s the type of man he was. (He spent several years spreading the rest of her ashes in her requested places that had special meaning to her/them.)
Our holiday card to him was returned this year. It gave me pause, but I was hoping it was that he had a new address. That he’d finally sold his long time home, the one my Mom had joined him in, and moved into a beautiful retirement community with lots of ladies vying for his attention. And with dancing. Lots of dancing.
Unfortunately, after inquiring, my brother learned from one of JD’s sons, Jason, that JD passed away late last month. Jason’s Facebook tribute said he was 87 and went comfortably after a “long, full and productive life” close to his original home in the Pacific NW.
I hope he had someone as special as he was by his side when he passed over, like he was there for my Mom.
In order to avoid real life as much as possible right now for several reasons, we’ve been binging the Best Picture nominees and recently saw JoJo Rabbit, a truly brilliant little gem. After the last scene, a line from a poem by Rilke entitled “Go to the Limits of Your Longing” is highlighted on the screen:
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going.
No feeling is final.
We lost a really, really Good Guy last month. It often seems like there aren’t enough real White Hats in the world these days.
People go, often too soon, and time definitely goes too fast, but they and our memories of them, will always have a special place in our hearts. Rest in peace, JD and of course, Mom. I hope your two sweet souls are gliding around the dance floor together…wherever you are.
Wedding photos by Johnny Chauvin 2001
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One response to “Good Guys Wear Black Hats”
Well said, hon. JD was as honorable as they come—the perfect companion for your mom at that point in her life. I’m so grateful to have been able to spend time with them both.