Had he lived to his next birthday, my brother-in-law, Ronald Davis, would have been eighty years old. Because of his declining health, his last year seemed much more a part of that life than it should have been. Especially those last few months, as his life slipped away, it might have been hard to see in him the man who so much a part of our lives for so long and who added special moments that many of us will never, ever forget.
We were reminded of some things as we watched him slip from mortality, and we learned some things. No the least of these was about how fortunate he was to have found my sister, June, so early in his life. They were high school sweethearts that not only loved and married, but who literally shared a life together.
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| June & Ronald, holding two of my children, Joel & Alyson |
Any of us who are familiar with how difficult those last few months were for both of them will attest that my sister was, in the words of the song, an "angel among us." It is impossible to imagine that she could have done or offered more than she did. She was and will remain an example to all of us who take seriously the vows we have spoken that include the words, "in sickness and in health, for better and for worse."
It was easy for some of us to assume that perhaps life for both of them might have been simpler and easier if Ronald had been moved to somewhere else, with more resources and stronger arms and backs to attend his needs. But that was not how he or she felt. And in the end, as is promised, it worked out – not just as we might have wanted or planned – but exactly as they wanted and needed.
I have been moved by the insight of man who described his own married life to his daughter:
"Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in-love, which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in-love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches, we found that we were one tree and not two."
-- Captain Corelli's Mandolin
So, now, for a season, part of that tree has fallen, but the other half bears no burden for not having done all she could and more. And she can lay claim to the promise that one day that whole tree will stand tall and full yet again.
June was the third of my father’s ten children, and the oldest that remains. When the folks from Munden’s arrived on Thursday to get Ronald, June greeted them at the door. She welcomed and thanked them, and then pointed to me and Tommy and said, "these are my brothers." And then still speaking in the present tense, she said, "I’ve got seven brothers and two sisters," as if all nine of us were standing beside her. In a sense that she appreciated, we all were (are).
Her home with Ronald has long been a gathering place for all of us and our children, and has been even more so in the fifteen years since Mama left us. On Sunday afternoons and summer evenings the cars have crowded beyond the driveway into her yard, so we could gather with and around her and him. If we were, by and large, June’s relations, it should be known that Ronald enjoyed having us, seemingly, as much as she did. If too long passed between visits, when you showed up he again, he would ask, "where have you been?"
Many if not most of the special occasions of my own children’s lives can be traced to that neighborhood, where June and Ronald’s home sat almost directly in the center - there in the middle of what we reminded him was "Hancock Land," flanked by June’s brother, and two sisters, living on a parcel that had first been developed by another brother, and surrounded on all sided by other land that could be traced back to a Hancock deed - that is where we gathered in the evening, even if we had already been together on Mama’s porch for most of the afternoon.
The World Series, the Superbowl, the Final Four, Political Convention Speeches, Election Night Returns, — these and many more occasions were just another excuse to gather together in that same living room with June and Ronald.
Unlike June, Ronald was an only child. And in a real sense June’s siblings became his family as well. Lest there be any confusion, he loved to talk about the Hancocks as if we were his curse. But he could do that because we knew in our hearts that deep down in his he considered us his blessing.
Ronald was especially sensitive and aware of family relationships. In describing someone on the Island that he knew, he invariably would explain that he or she was a part of some crowd or family, and then tell what were the attributes you could expect because of that. For example, if someone was a part of the Hancock crowd, then according to Ronald they were "stingy" (although we often reminded him that everything that was important in his life could be traced to a Hancock). He had similar traits that he would ascribe, some positive and some negative, to every other family grouping on the Island.
June and Ronald were married a just few months after I was born. Neither my brother Teff nor I can remember a June that did not include Ronald. To us, as to most of the people here, they were one and the same. And one of the great blessings of this wonderful journey that we call life, is that they will remain that way for an eternity.
Indeed, the two of them were able to lived-out what was Robert Browning’s dream:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made
Although Ronald was grafted in to the Hancock family, he remained to the very end a proud, even defiant champion of the legacy of his grand father, Cleveland Davis. Several things were near and dear to his heart, but it would be safe to say that the first, and always among the strongest of his identities, was that he was part of that "Cleveland Davis crowd", with all that it implied and meant to them and to others.
Ronald’s father, Tilton, was the second of Cleveland and Mattie’s nine children. Cleveland had been one of the literal founders of what became Harkers Island, and he remained a ‘mover and shaker" until his death in 1941. He had a fish house and a store, (the song "The Booze Yacht" mentions that store, as it was sometimes called at that time, the "Beehive") and along with a select few others, he controlled the politics of the Island for more than a generation. His sons, especially Tilton and Hubert, embraced that political legacy with all their hearts.
Ronald grew up following his father and uncles to political gatherings, hanging around at polling places on election days, and driving to Beaufort soon after sundown to be there when the final votes for the whole county were posted on a chalk board at the Courthouse. Long after the passing of his grandfather and father, Ronald continued that election night tradition, and if you had any doubts about his political feelings and passions — well then you didn’t really know him all that well!
Any listing of Ronald’s virtues would have "loyalty" near the top, and to the very end, even as political labels changed and new issues arose that were never even imagined by his parents, Ronald Davis remained true and faithful, and "loyal" to the political affiliations that had meant so much to Cleveland Davis and his descendants for so very long. Try and change to subject to some other issue you might think more relevant today, and Ronald would always remind you of something special that his "party" had done for him or someone he knew and loved.
Also on that list of loyalties was one that was tested with "ultimate disappointment" every summer since 1948. Ronald loved the Cleveland Indians. He grew up in the era of Bob Feller and Herb Score, and he kept thinking, or at least hoping, that his team would reclaim that post-war glory. With a small group of friends that included Henry Allen (Brooks) and his son, Kevin, Perry Ryan (Davis), Alton Paul from Davis, and eventually, my son-in-law, Rodney (Steelman), they were like a special fraternity bound together by their affection for something few other people could fully appreciate. Every time they saw one another, each one knew what would be their first topic of conversation.
Well, the Indians, came awfully close back in 1997, just one out away, but they never got that out. Still, every April up until this one, "hope would spring eternal," and Ronald, usually with a copy of the Sporting News in his hand would say, "I think this is gonna be our year!"
That Sporting News he carried, would turn out to be quite an influence in my life. Long before ESPN, or even local sports broadcasts, that weekly paper and dozens of other magazines were where we learned about Big League Baseball. There was only one televised game a week, and that was often so fuzzy we couldn’t tell the players apart. But in that paper and those magazines I came to know and love a game that, much as was the case with Ronald, has brought me more heartache than celebration over the years.
In fact, one of Ronald’s favorite ploys over the years, was when on those few occasions that the Indians might have won a game against the Red Sox, Ronald would always greet me by inquiring, "I ain’t seen the scores today, how did that game turn out last night?"
Ronald’s love for sports was not limited to watching and reading and arguing. He was quite the player in his day. He was a standout member of the last basketball team that represented Harkers Island High School, while his girlfriend, filled a similar role on the girl’s team. Ask Bobby Russell or my Uncle Dick (Lewis) about Ronald on the basketball court, even that outdoor concrete one that sat behind the old Harkers Island School, where they learned to shoot at straight angles, with very little arch, to avoid the ball being blown off-course by the northwest winds that were a constant part of winter practices.
Still later he played and coached a softball team that played in the county league, and that most memorably had two unforgettable wins over our local rivals; one that ended with his good friend Bob Shipp being thrown out at the plate after he had hit a ball so far that it took not one but two relay throws to reach the catcher. But reach it it did, and Bob was out no matter what kind of stories he may still be telling.
Those who knew and loved him could appreciate the small, sometimes unique, things that made his life and his person so special.
Early on in their marriage, every evening after work Ronald used to love to walk up to Fillmore’s store, right there in the heart of Cleveland Davis land and what was the closest we had to a down-town. He would get a six oz Dr Pepper and pack of nabs and stand in front, not inside, the store and visit with people as the walked in or by. That all ended when he observed someone who was stoned drunk leave the store one evening only to be involved in a fatal accidents a few minutes later. After Ronald was called to testify in the court hearing, he determined never to have that responsibility again, and his days of standing outside the store were over forever.
Like his father, Ronald loved small children, and unlike so many others, not just his. Each of my children in their early and formative years considered him as much a playmate as an uncle. He always, again like his father, carried some candy in his pockets to share with the children that he ran into, even at church. It was a ritual for my kids to find him as soon we arrived on Sunday morning, and then to come back to where we were seated, with a handful of candy.
Similar to what he felt for children was his affection for family pets. From the German Shepard, Dash, of my boyhood, and especially to my brother Mike’s Labrador Retrievers, Sandy and Charlie, Ronald treated them more like people than like pets. Even when money was tight, and other dogs were eating dried dog good or Alpo from a can, Ronald would drive to the store and come back with a package of hotdogs or even bologna or ham to feed to feed them, what he said was, "something they really wanted."
Ronald spent a short time in the Coast Guard. We loved to talk about while undergoing basic training, for some reason June and another wife decided to go all the way to Cape May, NJ to be close by so that whenever their husbands were granted leave, they were there to visit. We would always surmise that June was the first woman from the Island to undergo boot camp, and that Ronald was the first man from the Island to take his wife with him when he went.
After a few years of piddling jobs on the Island at the Fish House and building boats, Ronald eventually caught on at Cherry Point where he later would retire. But through all of that he still loved to hang around at the fish houses and docks, and was often part of my brother Mike’s crew when croakers and spots showed up in the late fall. Mike was probably his closest friend and the interaction between them was a delight to others as well as them. Each knew exactly how to pull the strings of the other, and they were especially happy to do just that. But they could do that because their bonds were so strong that like with small puppies, ribbing and even playing added to, rather than detracted from, their affection for each other.
I’ll give you a small example. As I mentioned, whenever he was available Ronald was always a part of the crew that went fishing with Mike. So when Mike entered on one of his projects, this time building what would become the "Seven Brothers," his largest trawler ever, Ronald would usually come home and then go over and "piddle" with Mike on the boat. In fact, Ronald was an accomplished "disk-sander" and it was assumed that this was one job that would always be left for him. But for some reason, as the boat neared completion, the subject came up of how many men it would take to work this boat with all of its gadgets, including a wench and a large spool, to take much of the hardest work from pulling in a sink net.
When Ronald mentioned that he would certainly be one of those who would still be needed, my brother Mike explained the following: "When it comes to crews for the boat, I’ve got two lists, and you’re on both of them. One is a list of those who will be going with me, and you’re on the bottom of that list. The other is a list of those that ain’t gonna go with me, and you’re at the top of that list! So you can rest assured that you’re on both of my lists!" You can imagine the way that Ronald looked back at him, and even guess what Ronald called him in his response.
Beyond having been together at the school they attended together there was another place where June and Ronald met together, and it was there that would be nurtured the tie that eventually would bind them as one for the eternities.
Because, if Ronald was heir to the cultural and political legacy of his grandfather Cleveland through his father Tilton, he was even more devoted to the religious legacy he inherited from his grandmother Annabelle, through his mother, Marie.
Annabelle had been among the first and most devoted converts to the Mormon Church on Harkers Island. Her sister, Sabra even donated the land that was home to the first Mormon chapel on the Island, and that was eventually burned. Some of Annabelle’s children, especially her daughters Thelma and Marie, embraced that commitment with all their souls. And Marie made sure that her son, Ronald, was aware of and true to that tradition.
Ronald was never the kind to seek, or even accept, public responsibility for leadership, not even in the Church. But from the earliest days of his youth, until the very end of his life, one thing could be said of him and his involvement in this faith, and it could be said without any reservation. He was always there!
From the late 1930's to the beginning of this decade, in every group picture of the membership or brethren of the LDS group on the Island, you can find his face, usually at the back, often partially hidden behind someone more prominent, but he is always there.
To use the expression made popular by Winston Churchill after World War II to describe refugees from Eastern Europe who, he said, voted with their feet, Ronald Davis showed his allegiance with his feet and hands. In his very extremities he was part and parcel of what he believed to be this great "Latter-day work."
Every sacrament meeting on Harkers Island, every Priesthood meeting in Kinston, every clean-up project at the graveyard and every welfare project tearing off and replacing shingles on someone’s roof, he always was constant in at least one thing. He was always there, lending his hands as well as his heart, sustaining the Priesthood in the best way he knew how, by being there and being counted.
In the New Testament Book of James, the brother of Jesus observed,
(New Testament | James 1:27) "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
If James was right, and this be the case, then our brother Ronald had "pure religion," as much as any of us, and more than most of us.
If his co-workers remembered him for anything it was for bringing a pan of June’s light bread to someone who was sick or grieving. All over the Island, there are those who will speak with fondness of the little things he brought or did, often in the shade, to lift the spirits of someone he knew to be hurting.
Indeed, the one angle of the old political tradition that he held onto the most firmly was the idea that "government was supposed to help people!"
In Priesthood meeting each Sunday it is asked if there is anyone sick or who needed help. As long as he had ears to hear and a voice to speak, Ronald could be counted on to point out who it was that needed our help, and not just our prayers. Then, sometimes, audibly and sometimes under his breath, he would echo the same thing he believed about government by saying, "the church is supposed to help people!"
To quote again from that same Apostle James mentioned a moment ago, this too was Ronald’s religious credo,
(James 2:17 - 20)
7 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
Ronald was a man of faith, evidenced in little things like his prayers of faith, his tithes and his offering, his stated testimony, and constant presence. But more than any other way, he evidenced his faith by his works -small and away from the beaten path – but heartfelt and constant and never-wavering.
I knew Ronald Davis all of my life, and most of his. I knew him as a son and husband, as a father and as a brother, as an uncle and as a grandfather, and in all of these he tried to do his very best, and when judged by that standard he will not come up as wanting. But I also knew his as a worker in the vineyard of the Lord, and can testify in his behalf that he was always there to be numbered among the Saints.
Just like the Ronald Davis whom today we remember, we live, we love, we laugh, we cry, and then eventually, someday, all of us must die. The Apostle Paul had that in mind when he wrote to the Corinthians:
(New Testament | 1 Corinthians 15:19 - 22)
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
When I was just a teenager I was asked to participate in the funeral of a friend, a teammate, who had been killed in a Holiday hunting accident. As I looked at his lifeless body, still handsome and vibrant as it lie in the casket, I thought that I fully appreciated for the first time the promise of the resurrection. Little did I understand the full lessons that life would teach me.
How much more fully I had come to appreciate how wonderful was the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ when last Sunday night I stared at Ronald as he lay on his own sofa, wearing clothes that my sister had loving put on his almost lifeless body, and compared that to the man I had known over the years – smiling, joking, laughing, working, playing and so much a part of the life that I had loved. Then I could sense more than ever the true miracle of the Resurrection and the promise that we, even our physical bodies, will someday be restored, and that not so much as a hair on our heads will be forgotten.
And as I saw the sadness and pain in my Sister’s eyes I was reminded that even more than that, the things that we hold most dear in life, will be restored as well - including our families and our sweet relationships that in the end, are more important to us than life itself.
"Temporary separation at death and the other difficulties that attend us as we all move toward that end [of life] are part of the price we pay for love in this world, the price we pay for the joy of birth and family ties and the fun of [life] spent together..." Still, it remains a price that we are willing to pay!
To Ronald, the shoreline beside Cleveland’s, later Henry’s, Dock was sacred ground. And so I leave you with these words of Longfellow.
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls (Longfellow)
The tide rises, the tide falls
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls
Along the sea sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town
And the tide rises, the tide falls
Darkness settles on roofs and walls
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls
The little waves with their soft white hands
Erase the footprints in the sands
And the tide rises, the tide falls
The day returns but never more
Returns the traveler to the shore
And the tide rises, the tide falls
Where Ronald Davis now walks, there is no tide or windblown sand that can ever again erase his footprints
!
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