To every flower, a season

Shirley's sister Karen called us just before dawn Wednesday to say that Shirley had awakened about an hour before, told Ray she felt ill, was sick for a little while, went back to bed with Ray and then died. Apparently she had a massive heart attack, and despite CPR from Ray and the paramedics, there was no getting her heartbeat back by the time they got her to the hospital. She was 63.

There's no way to tell those of you who don't know us well what Shirley meant to us. Those of you who do know us, also know that Shirley kept Holly Hill blooming, running and gleaming, the hardest-working, most direct, most intensely practical person we've known. The original WYSIWYG.

She made the draperies and beddings for Key West. She brought comfort food for my Dad's funeral and laughed with my aunts and flirted with the men. She doted on my Mom, who doted back, and kept both Mom's checkbook and garden in balance. She laughed with us, cursed with us, celebrated and grieved with us and invaded a large and special corner of our hearts.

When I was going over the obit information with Ray and Karen, I thought of two words she might have been proudest of: "Navy wife." While her beloved Ray was serving his country on Navy submarines around the world, Shirley was rotated through military housing around the country, raising three terrific kids -- she was proudest that they had all grown into productive, independent adults -- and working an array of jobs to make ends meet, all the while cooking, sewing, canning, crafting and making flowers do their thing.

Of course, she could also wield a hammer, paintbrush or tractor as well as most men I know, if not better.

I think it actually pained her to throw something away if you could clean it up, pretty it up and make it something useful and beautiful. Which is what she made her life, and ours: Useful and beautiful.

She said that one of her great honors was being able to wash her Dad's body for burial. One of mine was being able to write her obit for Ray, and in keeping with her style I gave it only one frill:

"She often said, 'You have to blossom where you are,' and Shirley flowered in abundance."

In praise of freedom

I bought this 3-D basswood carving, by Georgia artist Ned Cartledge, way back in the '90s, and it's hung in a place of honor ever since.

"Mooning Jesse," done in response to Jesse Helms, is subtitled, "(Inviting censorship.) Censorship inhibits free expression. This is not funded by the NEA."

Of course, those were the halcyon days when one could laugh about such things, before habeas corpus was suspended, before citizens could be detained without charges or warrants and while a certain man was ramping up to become the governor of Texas who signed 152 death warrants.

Apparently he's been studying hard since, and has finally gotten up to "commutation" in the dictionary.

(Remember Sister Helen Prejean? The one Susan Sarandon played in "Dead Man Walking"? Here's something Prejean wrote two years ago: "As governor, Bush certainly did not stand apart in his routine refusal to deny clemency to death row petitioners, but what does set him apart is the sheer number of executions over which he has presided. Callous indifference to human suffering may also set Bush apart. He may be the only government official to mock a condemned person's plea for mercy, then lie about it afterward, claiming humane feelings he never felt.")

If Ned were alive today, what would he carve?

Two moons

No ocean here, so the lake will have to do.

The city speaks

Aren't the azaleas pretty this year?

Less lovely is the 10-page document that arrived from the Key West city attorney's office this afternoon: "Motion for Rehearing of Appellate Order and Motion to Strike Language of the Order."

Robert was insulted by some of its language -- but hey, they're lawyers, and painting our actions in the worst possible shades is their job. Our tax dollars at work.

What fascinates me is that it's not an appeal of the special magistrate's decision to Circuit Court (which I'd expected), but simply a request to the magistrate to reopen our case and reverse his ruling on the wind codes' precedence over Historic Commission guidelines.

Perhaps I am grasping an infinitesimal reed (if I were still South, it would be sawgrass), but the motion specifically requests that Judge Overby "strike that part of his Order" that deals with wind codes.

It does not ask that Overby rule against our windows on any other grounds we cited in our other arguments on appeal -- particularly, that HARC ruled precisely the opposite way in a similar case last December, and that a helping of equal justice would be nice.

I may be back on the island sooner than I'd expected.