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week
of 2/6/02
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The
Death of a Fan By Thomas Rain Crowe As a poet in a culture that barely reads, and reads almost nothing of pure literature, one has very few readers and even fewer fans. So, when a true fan appears, one celebrates, indulges, imbibes .... I met Rhonda Franklin through Polly McDowell, who is a member of a writer’s group in Waynesville. The writer’s group had invited me to dinner prior to a speaking engagement that I was to give later that evening. A friend of Rhonda’s, Polly knew that she liked my work and had invited her to come to the dinner so she could “meet the author,” as it were. Lucky for me, as it turned out, due to snowy, icy road conditions, there were only the three of us at the dinner that night, and with enough time to spare, we had a good two hours to get past the pleasantries and talk deeper about writing and our lives. Rhonda was a “voracious” reader, as she referred to herself. “I’m not a writer, I’m a reader,” she was quick to add. And she loved poetry. She loved my poetry, she told me as her eyes sparkled and her seated body danced. She had read everything of mine that she could find— in libraries, used book shops, and from friends such as Polly. As we talked deep into the main course that evening, watching and listening to Rhonda I became aware that I was experiencing a rare moment of grace. As lines from my poems — some written as far back as 25 years — emerged from her smiling mouth, I felt embarrassed but at the same time blessed. Blessed that my writing had connected with at least one other human soul, and that my work would live on in her and those she might share it with. Rhonda Franklin, while being wonderfully Rhonda Franklin, was also a walking publicist and a distribution company of the heart. So, the irony couldn’t have been greater than when I received the news, a couple weeks later, of her death. Rhonda, as I knew from our earlier dinner conversation, was scheduled for major heart surgery on Jan. 22. Being as she was only 40 years old, I had felt sorry for her when she told me of her impending surgery as we talked over our food that evening. I felt the heart surgery motif was somewhat ironic then, but as Polly McDowell’s teary voice gave me the news over the phone that Rhonda had died in the hospital due to some fluke accident following a successful surgery, the ironic and twisted “heart” metaphor was almost too much to take: that this woman with a heart as big as the Haywood County mountains she was born and raised in, and which she loved, should die from an unexpected and sudden heart-related event seemed more than tragic, it seemed down-right unfair. That coupled with the fact that I had just a few days before inscribed a copy of my three-book Night Sun Trilogy to her with the words “For Rhonda, my friend, and a friend of words with a big heart!” made the phone call from Polly that much more terrible. Rhonda and I had only just met. The dew was still fresh and glistening on the grass of our new friendship. Losing Rhonda Franklin, for me, feels like what it must be like for those who unexpectedly lose a child or a member of their family — for “family” is, for us writers, those who know us for our work. For most of my life my words have been my only offspring, and those who read the words my extended progeny. In this sense, Rhonda was family. And now, suddenly, gone. As I ponder her passing with heavy heart, I am thinking about how public personalities get all the limelight and attention in this star-studded and crazed culture of ours. But what about fans? Those who make the “stars” what they are, what they aspire to be. There will be no big headlines in the newspapers for Rhonda Franklin as there would certainly be for the untimely death of the rich and famous. But there should be, as Rhonda, indicative of others like her, was a “star” in her own right. A struggling single mother who nurtured and provided for her three children, Heather, Brandi and Robert; who lived close to the bone yet spread her love of life and positive attitude, enthusiastically and generously, I am told, wherever she went. I, for one, can testify that my experience of her was such. So, this small eulogy is my awkward attempt, on behalf of all of us who work creatively and in the public eye, to give the lovers of poetry and language, of poets and writers, something in return. Turn the spotlight on them for a moment for their much-deserved work as those who nurture and provide the necessary strokes for our over-sized egos as “Mothers of the muse” — which Rhonda certainly was (albeit for such a short time) for me. I won’t grieve, here, publicly for Rhonda, as that will be my private cross to bear, as it will be for those who knew and loved her as the bright candle-like light she was in the lives that she illuminated. But I will offer my condolences to her children and her family who know, more than I ever will, what has been lost in her passing. As for me, I will remember her sitting there in Bogart’s restaurant in downtown Waynesville on a cold winter evening in between bites of salad and slurps of soup reciting from memory lines from my poetry. I can tell you it doesn’t get any better than that! So, Rhonda, let me reciprocate and recite a couple lines to you — and to all those like you, who live in the shadows of our culture, yet are the true heroes from whom we artists are constantly stealing light — from that book you loved and wanted and which was on its way ....
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