Janice Williams Loves Austin

I’ve thought today about this entry and how I could write about my cousin Judy. I don’t think that I can. Not and do her justice. Not tonight. Today is Judy’s birthday. Judy also died this morning at 3:30. We are leaving tomorrow to head to Amarillo for her funeral on Wednesday. My sister is already there, Mother and the boys are heading up from Dallas, and Mark and I are going together.

Judy has had breast cancer for more than three years. She has had it spread to her bones and had to have a thigh bone replaced. It has destroyed her liver. Her heart, the biggest and most loving heart a human could have, was weakened by the chemotherapy and she had to have a pacemaker. Finally, all of the weakening was more than she could bear.

When Dad had cancer and then Mother had cancer, Judy sent emails of encouragement from someone who knew all the ropes. Should knew the symptoms and the side effects. She was a cheerleader and a shoulder to cry on.

Despite being so sick, she hosted our family at her home after my grandmother’s funeral and again after Daddy’s funeral last year. Always a gracious hostess, she never acted as if it were a bother or acted as if it wore her out. . . though we know it did.

Since she got sick she has seen her son marry and he and his wife have a baby girl. And one of her daughters had her first baby. Judy got to see her other two grandchildren growing and blossoming. And she had a few more years with the husband that we all adore. The man who helped her, protected her, encouraged her, and finally married her. He has been a blessing to our family and we are all so glad they found one another later in life.

I took this the last time I saw her. She was weak and didn’t much feel like being at lunch with me and my aunt and her sister and the two husbands, but she was there and she laughed and we had a great visit. I really didn’t know it would be this soon until she was gone.

I’ve been thinking about how much Judy meant to me. She wrote funny, sweet emails. She taught me piano when I was in elementary school. Mainly, I have to appreciate her for opening my eyes to the world of pop music. She was a teenager when the Beatles came along. She was crazy in love with the Beatles, but had a healthy appreciation for the Beach Boys and the Four Seasons, too. When we went to visit Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Homer, we got to marvel at the posters on her walls and her scrapbooks of clippings about the Beatles and we listened to her records. She played me the whole side of Alice’s Restaurant and I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard. If I hadn’t had Judy, I think I might not have really appreciated the radio and music until Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy came along, and then what kind of a music lover would I be today?

I will be mourning her loss with her entire Amarillo family who are as tight knit as a family can be. They’ve had Sunday lunches together with four generations for years and years. It’s a family that I marvel at and envy while I’m glad mine isn’t that way. While they are busy and modern and “normal,” they have a relationship that is a throwback to a simpler time. I am sad for me and my loss, but so much sadder for Aunt Dorothy because you should never have to lose a child, and for Judy’s sister Donna and Donna’s daughter Tracee. Donna and Judy and Tracee practically grew up together. And Judy’s own kids, Loren and Heather and Chris. They have wonderful spouses and beautiful children, but they have been through so much at such a young age.

You always hear people talk about someone that “everyone loved.” With Judy, it was an absolute fact. She was a wonderful listener and counselor and friend and conversationalist. I heard a Beatles song on the radio today and know that Beatles songs will always remind me of Judy. “You say goodbye, but I say hello, hello, hello.  I don’t know why you say goodbye I say hello….” It reminded me of the greetings and hellos she’s getting in heaven. We have to say goodbye now, but we’ll all say hello again one day.