THE MAN FROM GEORGIA MADE GOOD.

“Red” they called him fondly, was raised in southern Georgia. One of seven children raised by a widowed mother. He knew poverty, but not hunger; knew deprivation but did not lack for love and affection. He experienced loss, but not the loss of hope, pain but not despair. His energy for triumph over adversity was boundless, and he reinsured that his later life would not reflect his humble roots.

His face was round, his hair black with distinguished grey at the peak and closely cropped, his build rotund but not obese, his height not tall but well above short, his complexion rust colored or “red,” his voice, southern with a discernible tone unique to his persona, for clarity and strength, and he wore glasses. These physical features describe the outward appearance of my father, but do not begin to describe this complex human being. My dad was far more than these physical features. Within the family he was a husband, a father, an uncle, a grandfather, a son and a brother. Professionally he was an educator and his avocation was real estate investment. Within those fields, he wore many hats: that of a trailblazer, a schoolmaster, a principal, a teacher, an administrator, a supervisor, a resource, a counselor to his colleagues, a realtor and a businessman.

Dad was diagnosed with a rare cancer two years before he passed. The rarity of its kind did not make it any less virulent. I knew from personal experience, having witnessed the progression of Wendy Bee and Lang Dixon’s cancerous diseases, that he would not be around two years from that date. On one of my trips from Philadelphia, I stopped off at the hospital to visit him. And as I sat there, the nurses began his chemotherapy. I cried silently, though some water filled my eyes, because I was sitting a bit away from him he could not discern my emotions. I knew that was the beginning of the end. And just like clockwork, two years after his treatment and diagnosis the reality of his demise arrived.

Dad was determined to attend his 50th college reunion at his alma mater, Fort Valley State University in Fort Valley, Georgia. Whether to travel to the reunion was debated and even his doctor’s opinion was solicited. He went. Mom and Dad enjoyed the experience, and it made him happy to go back to where his uplift began.

Aunt Dilo, clairvoyant as she was, arrived at Leonard-Belle Heights the night before Christmas on December 24th, 1998. She knew instinctively that Dad was seriously ill. She had surmised it on his last trip to Georgia, when she said to him “Red what’s wrong with your head?” and he didn’t reply. Dad was glad to see his youngest sister. They were close in age and had grown up together, perhaps closer than he was to his other siblings, but not by much.

On Christmas day we all gathered at Mom and Dad’s home. It had snowed the night before. And the next day, the bright sun sparkled against the snow that covered the grounds; emblazoned by the glimmering white ice crystals that hung from the tree limbs and branches that accentuated the bright reflection of the snow. The affect made for a magical rustic environment. We all went outside for a walk and Dad walked over his treasured grounds for one last time. He seemed to know that this would be the last time in this life he would see his beloved Leonard-Belle Heights, his Monticello, the white house on the hill built by a Black man and his wife. He looked over the place with especial care, noticing the snow covered shrubs he and Mother had labored in the long languid hours of past hot summers to plant, having planted more azaleas than they needed which was their approach. Mother, ironically, had said previously, affirming the sanity of their approach, “we have been planting all of our lives. That’s why we have what we have.”

Otis, my oldest was there, and held Dad’s hand as we walked down the driveway. And down to Woodberry Road to Old Ballard and back up again. I walked along side while the others trailed behind. My youngest was there, but he was still young in age and appreciation for the gravity of this quintessential moment. We all knew instinctively that this was his last panoramic view, though no one even thought to mutter an implication of that thought. God made his traveled journey ethereal especially gracious and a wonderful experience for all of us. And we all appreciated the magnitude and the significance of what we were sharing with the patriarch of the family.

After our walk on the outside we went back inside, and he gave each of us a $100.00 bill in crisp new money. He evidently had planned to do this and we all wondered, well, why Dad was doing this? He was not questioned closely; and although we displayed a quizzical look on our faces, he had no answer. He just smiled a male Mona Lisa type smile, but it was his way of saying goodbye in a manner that somewhat reflected a value that was important: giving, not always receiving, making a happy moment out of that which was innately sad, making a party out of a farewell, passing around a symbol of value. He had seen his dream home in its resplendent glory that snow-laden morning. The bright snow draped the house and the trees like a canopy of white and silver light refracted through a quiet, stilled forest on a hill, in his beloved Albemarle County. He had received the blessing he earned. His disease was a frightful nightmare, but he bore it well. A rare cancer, but virulent in its manifestation. I did all I could do to minimize any possible disfigurement that some sadistic doctors at UVA would have put him through, for I personally would not allow it. I got a referral to the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond where he was treated with a great deal more compassion. Mother and I were pleased with the way they received him and treated him. In times like these, you do what you can knowing the futility of your efforts, but you must try.

The frightful call came a day later at 2 a.m. in the morning on December 28, 1998. Mother said in a nervously strained voice, “Otis, its Lee! I cannot do anything with him.” I said, “Mother just take it easy, we’ll be right over”.

What she was trying to say, but could not because of the excitement of the moment, was that Dad had collapsed on to the floor in his bedroom and was unconscious and that she could not revive him. Michelle and I, as quickly as we could, scrambled to get to the house without getting stopped by the police for speeding. Since it was late at night the roads were clear and there was little traffic. It still seemed like it took an eternity to get there. When we arrived we saw Dad laid out on the left side of his bedroom floor motionless, his eyes closed. He was gone, his end had come. He faced it bravely as he had done all the adversities of his life. We all must be as brave when that “outer door” is alarmed, and it now rang for him: seventy-four years in the making. My heart was broken as well as that of mother, his grandchildren, daughter-in-law and his surviving siblings, but what can you do. Nothing. As he often lamented, “you don’t know nothing! ” meaning we are ignorant about what is going on in our bodies and what state of health we are in at any given moment.

In the order of the death ritual, the Albemarle Rescue Squad was called. They tried in vain to resuscitate him, followed by the police and then the undertaker. It was both eerie and uncanny to see a police officer waiting in his patrol car in front of the house with his lights on in the darkness of the early morning. It all seemed to make everything official. It was as though the police were there to make sure no crime had been committed, no murder.

His death had not come as an immediate surprise although the moment of its occurrence was unsettling. The dogged and stoic personality of this man was well known to those of us who knew him. He bore his burdens bravely and confronted his trials with valor; such was the nature of his character. To those who loved him dearly, the immutable event of death in Dad’s case was an ironic blessing for him and us. The continuation of life for him at that time, suffering from the unyielding disease that attacked him, portended only more grief and suffering. I believe that Dad received God’s blessing because of his virtues and devoutness. God had spared Dad from a tortuous death and instead had given him an efficient and painless end to his life that the disease would otherwise not have allowed. Dad was a proud man, and he could not accept his death in any other manner than with pride, courage and dignity.

He lay on the bier stiff, silent and still, draped in a velvet burgundy gold trimmed shroud. The trestle board of his life was embodied in the stillness, dignity and solemnity of his presence. The serenity of that moment was broken by my oldest son who remarked “that Dad looked good.” The night was new and the air was cool. His flesh now cold, only thoughts of past memories heightened by the proximity of life to death pervaded the moment. He looked regal, the king we knew he was. His death occurred less than two days before I saw him again now possessed of the ages and as an indelible memory and irreparable loss for me and for those who truly loved him.

For the living, death is passage to the next stage of an uncertain existence, based upon a speculative subjective faith in the hereafter. The strength of your belief determines whether you get there or not. My dad’s death meant for me the bellowing sound of a rusting alarm clock that life for me had changed forever; I was now on the spot. My muse had been silenced. All that remained were the reverberations and repetitions of the pithy remarks and sententious sayings filled with his wisdom echoing in my brain. These appellations would take the place of his physical presence as a speaking apparition, as the doppelganger directing my actions through wit and humor.

Fortunately for me, my mother survived my father and I still have her to lean on. But, the loss of Father propelled my life forward, and now I am front and center, the tower, the lighthouse, the standard bearer, the one whose judgment is relied upon. Some are made to bear this burden at an earlier age, without the bulwark of education and experience. Was I ready for this evolution? Ready or not there it was.

Dad had flair. His public life was controversial and well known by the public in this community. He was vilified by the misinformed and the malevolent, yet he earned the respect of many influential people and common folks. No one’s life is one dimensional: all lives are multifaceted. On December 4, 1991, Dad was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree from the M.C. Allen School of Religion at Virginia Seminary and College in Lynchburg, Virginia—the oldest Black college in Lynchburg. The degree recited his 36 years as an educator, 23 years of which were spent in Albemarle County. From that point on he referred to himself as Dr. Lee. Dad also served as the Grand Master of the local Prince Hall Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, Inc. of Charlottesville, Virginia, culminating in fifty years of service to the Masons.

A reporter from the Daily Progress called the house before the funeral to inquire about the funeral service and to get comments from the family on a story the paper wanted to run on Dad’s passing. We were put off and angry. Why would a paper that had seen to it that they castigated this man, never acknowledging any of his contributions, invade the privacy of our home to sell newspapers at our expense? I slammed the phone down on the reporter with glee. Why could they not leave us alone even at this mournful time? Instead they sought comments on a man’s life they had no basis upon which to comment.

But my gesture did not stop the political hacks and other shallow men seeking refuge from nowhere from making their comments. One of whom was Blake Caravati, a former city councilman and mayor. I confronted him outside of the Charlottesville District Court when we were both there several months after Dad was funeralized. I had been looking for him to have the confrontation. The Daily Progress quoted him as saying “Lee could have done more.” I asked him “how could you comment on what my father could have done? You know nothing about what he did, not to speak of what contributions, if any, he made to society, before you even came into contact with him, before Charlottesville came into his life!” He sputtered and I trembled. My upper lip nervously twitched as I got my protest out. Not because he was a leading figure in politics at this time, but because confrontations always require the effrontery to have them and confrontations require more energy. Tremble or not, I got it out. I could not let the issue rest, because in my judgment he was wrong. He should have refrained and avoided being used by the Daily Progress to sell newspapers at someone else’s expense. But the lure of headlines and publicity to a politician is enticing.

On the day of his funeral, the weather was cold, snowy, overcast, grey and dreadful. Mother and I thought of postponing the funeral to another day, but she preferred to continue because we were tired and wanted an end to this phase of the grieving process. We considered the effect of the weather on those far away who wanted to attend but were amazed at those who braved the weather and showed up. We were equally amazed at those who failed to attend using the weather as a convenient excuse. Based upon who attended, we could separate the good weather friends from the bad weather friends.

We gathered at the house and were escorted to the waiting limousines, long, black and sleek. As we drove along the route to Mount Zion African Baptist Church, the local church that Dad had been a member of for all of his stay in Charlottesville, I saw a brown colored hawk with white markings perched high on an overhead electrical wire peering eerily over the procession of cars. His perch was erect as though at attention.

As I gazed upon the hawk, my mind recalled an event that occurred years before on a warm summer morning during a routine visit to my parent’s home. I arose early that morning and went for a morning jog along Old Ballard Road, the country road abutting the northwestern end our home. As I rounded a curve a hawk suddenly swooped down and seized a pigeon walking several feet in front of me. The hawk placed its talons around the pigeons’ neck as if to kill it or take it away. Hearing my approach the hawk turned its facile neck, gazed upon my bearing with its recessed eyes, appraising the situation. It released the pigeon and flew away. The pigeon gathered itself and later flew away.

At that time, it had occurred to me that I symbolized the hawk and my father the pigeon. My reasoning was based upon a nasty fight that had been going on between an evil clan of local officials and their compatriots and my father over some of his business dealings. And I, in the heat of that battle, entered the fray as his attorney and advocate without notice to them. After my appearance, the texture of that preexisting fight changed. Our adversaries had not anticipated that I, the son they had forgotten about, the Philadelphia lawyer trained in the street warfare of Philadelphia litigation would assume the mantle of defender of my father. These adversaries were applying the politics of total destruction in an effort to destroy or to mortally wound him at that time. This struggle persisted for several years and was regular fodder for the local newspapers and tabloid press in the area.

Upon seeing that hawk again at this time, I felt a resumption of divine presence in my life. I wanted to make real that there was a rhyme and a reason for my existence beyond the existential, and nothing pleased me more than to exist for the purpose of helping my father who had gone well beyond the call of duty for me.

The funeral service was well attended considering the weather. My oldest son spoke movingly of his grandfather. I followed him to the podium filled with nervousness and grief. I thought of the time when we lived on Ridge St. Mother was cooking a meal, and I do not remember exactly what we were talking about, but during that conversation I said to her, “at Dad’s funeral I am going to speak.” Mother in her usual sharp wit replied, “are you sure you will be in any condition to do that?” I was too young to know of the emotional depth about which she spoke. I had no response.

I spoke about my dad at the funeral, as I viewed his casket lying there beneath the stage. I looked out into the audience, their eyes transfixed on me, and I wondered what they were thinking. Was it of me or of him? Did they expect me to get through this or was I expected to breakdown in tears and uncontrollable grief. Either way, each set of circumstances could have been expected.

Before I left the podium I saw a diminutive man slip into the back of the sanctuary and take a seat. I recognized him. A snake in the form of a well-known Black Charlottesvillian, he was a part of the evil cabal. Why was he there? Was it out of curiosity or a begrudging respect? Or was it to confirm in his own mind that Mr. Lee was dead? He left before the service was over to avoid, in my opinion, being seen by the family.

We imported a preacher to preach the eulogy because Dad had little regard for the ministers that pastored the local churches. Dad was a devout Christian, though far from being a saint. He took his religion seriously, but made room for the charlatans and the fraudulent. He hardly missed a Sunday service and he held strong feelings about the order and processes of religion. Dad had been used to a “silk stocking” church in Richmond, but had to settle for the “country church” level in Charlottesville. I was a strong advocate for not using any local preacher. Dad and I shared a common disdain for fake religiosity and the purveyors of the con. Though fraught with delay, inconvenience and tribulation, our minister of choice was Dr. G. Daniel Jones of Grace Baptist Church of Germantown, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, my former pastor, who agreed to eulogize him. Dr. Jones made it into Charlottesville on that blustery, inhospitable day, overcoming many travel inconveniences flying from Philadelphia to Charlottesville. I will be forever grateful for his service. We were gladdened by his appearance on the podium when we entered the church. It was as though, through all of this sorrow, the Lord’s blessing had again shone through.

The church service ended, the funeral procession made its way to the burial grounds. After a brief grave-side service, my father was entombed in a mausoleum. The snow and the wind continued to howl, and the bitter cold betokened a harshness to the reality of his death. No solace could be found in the comfort of the weather. I thought of it all as pure unadulterated reality—a “dog’s breakfast,” so to speak—the theater of the death ritual alarming my outer door, letting me know along with the others who were thoughtful, that at some appointed time in the future a similar ritual would await them.

Is this what it had come down to, the last sad act? Where was the life after death? The essential dogma of the religion so dominant in his life and the lives of all the other Christians gathered to funeralize him. The raison d’etre of the Christian faith. I have yet to see it after my father’s death, or in the death of those who went before him, that I also loved except in the quotidian remembrances and loving memories we carry of them each living day that we go forward. If life after death is somewhere else, I have not seen or witnessed it. Is the resurrection inside each of us? As we carry the treasured memory of our departed loved ones? That is the closest I, in my humble, vacillating and meager knowledge of the Christian faith, can come to.

In Masonry we are taught that in the end, all we have is the “delight in the happy reflection of a life well lived in piety and virtue.” We all must make ready for the “narrow house” we all one day will occupy. What did it all mean to Dad? I will never know. He lived well and as far I know he lived a virtuous life. Not a perfect life but a decent, noble, upstanding life. He knew success, and from what I could observe he found contentment. Coming from his humble roots to the plateau he last occupied was a long and tortuous journey straight upward. He out-lasted and out-maneuvered many who claimed to be smarter, those who were more cunning—the evil doers and the sanctified.

Am I changed by the experience of his death? Yes, sure. I am both changed and chastened. No, life will never be the same. I had the good fortune to have him in my life actively for 51 years, enough time to grow up and mature. God can work it out that way for some. Others less fortunate must find a way forward without the longevity of fatherhood in their lives. I am changed because I no longer have his wisdom, and the anima, the core of his character, of his being, available to me through his invariable presence. I am left with the spiritual reassurance of his love. I am chastened by and fortunate to have had the responsibility to inherit my father’s “throne” or that which is left of it, with a responsibility to live up to the labor he put into making and leaving a legacy worth inheriting. Dad set the stage for us to “win,” my job is to see that we keep on winning. Figuratively, I lost my right arm when my father died and when my mother expires I will have lost my left arm. All that will remain of my upper body will be the torso, that includes my heart which I bequeath to my children and my wife.

“Don’t give up,” was his mantra which he restated more in the later years than when I was younger. I seemed to be blessed with a strong will to prevail. I can think of only a few worthwhile endeavors that I quit on. I strove to embody Dad’s advice, and I still think of it often when tested whether to throw in the towel or not. Winston Churchill is quoted as having said “Never, give in, never, never, never give in on nothing great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”(sic). I have fallen short of that standard, but I have not given in on many things that were really important.

“All you gonna get in this life is a living and a killing,” was another one of his oft quoted mantras. I think about this expression often, especially when the futility of striving wears thin. And the wear and tear of life makes you wonder whether or not it’s all worth it. The reasoning is that you just as well get the “living” because the “killing” literally is inevitable. Life as he saw it came down to the basics, life or death. It seems to me from my experience that life cuts with a jagged edge, its blade is not rounded and smooth, it tears as it cuts.

There were issues talked about while I was being raised, and there were issues that were not discussed. We did not discuss Black history, academic competition, though Dad, more so than Mom, got angry when my report card was not good; we did not discuss the importance of reading as an academic exercise and we did not discuss sex or Brown v. the Board Of Education. What was discussed was vocabulary building, college attendance, people, Black and White politics in general, the Albemarle County School System, The Charlottesville School System, many of the individual personalities in Charlottesville, the church, piano playing (mine especially), real estate issues, the extended family, and the old sayings he loved to quote.

He also said about me that “I was too nice.” What he meant was that he thought I was soft. That I gave folks too many breaks, but he didn’t really know me, because if he did, he would have known of my sterner side. The difference is that I have tried to be decent, not a pushover or mean person, just civil and decent. My mother always advised me, even in the midst of strife, “be civil, that’s all you have to do, be civil.” Dad was less forgiving than me, he was harder.

Mother was always in there, pitching, though her style was much softer, more understanding and I could always get her to see my point of view. Mother has truly loved me, and I her, all of our lives together; we are inseparable actually.

Dad while teaching me to drive on route 250 west, the Old Richmond Road, before route 64 west was opened and available, said to me as I drove along: “You know the car now. You are in the driver’s seat. Just keep the car in the middle of the road.” I had been driving for a while and apparently not scaring him to death in the process, such that he felt comfortable when he uttered these remarks. He knew I wouldn’t take these words literally.

I have applied this statement to much more than driving because its application is broad and his meaning went well beyond driving an automobile. He was always talking in parables to make a point.

I am truly my father’s son. It seems that I become more like him every day. His imprimatur is so impressed upon me that perhaps this is what is meant in the Christian tradition of “life after death.” My dad lives on within me every day.

As Dad got more into retirement, he played more golf. He was good at it. And sometimes when he was having fun he would say, “Lord don’t take me now, I’m just beginning to live.” On one of his happier days at his home, after a few drinks, which he enjoyed, he declared with much bravado: “it all belongs to me! It all belongs to me!” as he took another swig of whiskey from his favorite drinking glass. In this moment, he was really feeling it: pride, accomplishment, power and command. After all, in a certain kind of way, it did all belong to him. He created his estate. Though I was my own man, I belonged to him, and he was a significant part of my success. He liked to run the whole show and dominate everything and everybody if you let him. He was that kind of guy. He had made it the hard way. Affirmative Action had not been invented when he took on the system. Jim Crow was the perverted black bird he made paradise out of. He held that bird in his hand most of his adult life. But by witnessing the success he achieved, you would not have known it. Before he passed, Dad established and endowed the Otis and Rosa Lee Scholarship Fund at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Charlottesville, the first such fund established in the history of the church, still in existence today.