It's Always Hard To Say Goodbye

By: Joe Tennis | TriCities.com
Published: May 21, 2009

I never wanted to turn this into an obituary column.
In fact, I was one – maybe the only one – who actually liked when the obituaries were put into the back of the newspaper.
I honestly just didn’t like opening my day and sadly seeing who had passed away.
Another reason: I always knew I would find somebody I had known – especially people I had interviewed.
Like Louise Fortune Hall.
Hanging out in Damascus, Va., at last weekend’s Trail Days, I struck up a conversation with a lady who knew Hall, the 90-something historian who wrote a couple of books about that “Town of Many Trails.”
I met Hall once and talked to her on her phone several more times.
She was never shy about sharing historical information and funny tidbits about the town.
Hall died recently.
And so did Harold “Doodle” Jessee.
He was a decorated war veteran of Russell County, Va., and writing a story on him helped me win an award.
But never mind that.
My real honor came at a gathering several months after the story of his life – “Whispers of War” – appeared in the newspaper.
That afternoon, in nearby Hansonville, Mr. Jessee dropped in for a visit, patting me on the back.
He said he knew I was going to be there, and he just wanted to see me.
That day, we talked about going to lunch in Lebanon.
But time marched on.
And we just didn’t make it.
Another person who didn’t make it recently: Margaret Greer.
She was the funny lady who dressed as a clown for laughs and disguised herself as a mannequin to playfully scare trick-or-treaters.
A full-page article on Margaret Greer appeared on the Mother’s Day Community section of the Herald Courier.
I caught up with this lady at her home, also in Russell County, just a couple of miles from Mr. Jessee’s house.
Fighting cancer, Greer was so sick that she had to be helped into her living room for the interview.
And, feeling so bad, she had to be helped out early, saying she needed to rest.
That day, I left her house at Lebanon to write a story that needed to be funny, just to capture her personality.
But I also knew it should tie in the emotional heartstrings that were naturally pulled in me – just in seeing a person in their final days.
Greer clearly knew what was coming.
And I nearly cried as I capped her story with a quote, as Greer advised her children: “Don’t cry. Just laugh. Because ... where I’m going, they can go, too.”
Greer won her eternal reward less than a week after that story appeared.
Her daughter, Bonnie Finney, sent me a text message while I was at Trail Days.
And I nearly cried again, reading: “Our mom went to heaven at three-thirty this a.m. Thanks for the beautiful article.”

It's Always Hard To Say Goodbye

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