The Thinker

Wilson stuck around for as long as he could. Those 12 years went by in a flash, even with the periodic emergencies, most of the days were made up of a routine…breakfast, meds, bathing, trimming his beard, doing our exercises, taking him for a walk. Mind you…this was WILSON, brain injury or no, so he was alternately stubborn, playful, belligerent…but thankfully infatuated with ME. So he never tried to escape & mostly wanted to please me by cooperating.  Luckily, I was well-acquainted with him. I didn’t make him do things he wouldn’t like. He would never just go for a walk! He was used to having a destinations in mind, so the WALK was to the Post Office, where he went several times a week all his life. I had set up a P.O. Box, so fans could write, send donations, and cards. We almost always found something in the box, so the errand was rewarding.

I cancelled it only a year before he passed, even though he hadn’t been able to make it that far any more for several years. Rena had reduced their daily walk to around the block, towards the end. He was getting wobbly, and mostly leaned all over her, pushing her against buildings or parked cars towards the end, looking for all the world like a mismatched pair of drunks, struggling to get home.

I grieved hard the first year, alone, with no special memorial to celebrate this extraordinary artist, as he deserved. But COVID had us sequestered already for two years, and we were only one couple out of millions now suffering. People died in a matter of days, in the middle of their lives, and even the elderly thought they had much more time! But I’d been keeping Wilson ALIVE for all these years, as he slowly declined…he hadn’t taken sick & suddenly died. He was slightly dying every day…but knowing that doesn’t mean I was READY.

This is the 2nd year of his absence, and I’m just beginning to grasp the permanence of his departure. Forcing myself to look directly at it today, I’m hit harder than the first anniversary, when I was still in shock. This is the REALITY now, and it’s time for me to start accepting it. So I’m trying to treat this like a NewYear’s Resolution. I’m sure that like a diet, an exercise program, or stopping smoking, I will have many relapses…or lapses in my resolve. But just because I should start moving FORWARD doesn’t mean I’ll be able to leave him behind.

I miss him terribly, and feel pretty sure he’s still following me around, always snooping and forever eavesdropping on me. I used to get exasperated with that, but now I’m comforted by this notion. Besides, I never COULD tell him what to do! I once hung a Do Not Disturb sign on my studio door, to keep him from bouncing in every 20 minutes to tell me a funny thought or see what I was doing. Telling him to STOP IT never worked, but he never came in if the sign was there.

He respected traditions & boundaries if they were CLEAR. So, I drew  a clock on the sign, with the time when he could expect to be welcomed again, with open arms.

I wish I could hang it on the door now, so I could know in advance when to expect his return….

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*Please be so kind as to contribute to the Trust, if you can. I know times are hard for everyone these days, and I am no exception.I’m now sleeping in a hole in this ancient bed! I want an adjustable frame & new mattress, so I can stop waking in pain over & over all night long, struggling to get comfortable. I’d be most grateful..as even a small donation from many starts adding up. Thanks! xo

S. Clay Wilson by Drew Friedman

San Diego Comic Con has been going on all week, so I’ve been looking in on Instagram to see Wilson’s pals rocking out, posing for photos and remembering him getting ready to go to it years ago.

”Is that all you’re taking?” I asked,  looking at his little bag. He was dressed up in his  pale striped blue seersucker Summer suit, white dress shirt, polka dot tie & straw hat. He looked ever so much like Mark Twain’s shirttail relative, perhaps a traveling Bible salesman in the South, except for the baby blue suede Italian loafers & pocket square, which suggested a more sophisticated sartorial splendor.

”What else do I need? I’m just wearing this for two days & Ill be back.” Oh yes…a long hot drive from San Francisco in a full car all the way down & back, plus two long days in a packed Convention Center which is – according to his measurements – a MILE LONG. I sniffed.

I stuffed in a couple more of his “smalls” & another pair of colorful socks, took a shot of him under the bay windows outside, and he was gone, toting his worn out boxy briefcase, covered in stickers, and his tiny leather duffle bag with razor & toothbrush. I discovered his extra underwear & socks on the bed later.

Wilson was an overexcited big KID all his life. He was maddening, hilarious, fun & funny. Birthdays were his favorite Holiday, and he routinely remembered other’s special day by calling to sing Happy Birthday to them at the crack of dawn at the top of his lungs. Then, before they could make a peep, he’d hang up.

Every year in early July, he’d start the campaign for his own Birthday, writing & calling everyone around the world to remind them of the upcoming date. God forbid he should receive no cards or calls on the 25th! They arrived en masse in the weeks before. He stacked them, unopened, until the proper time….ON his Birthday.

I miss him every day.

I’m celebrating your Birthday today my darling, my last husband, my favorite pain in the butt! I’m so grateful for all our memories together that comfort me today & make me chuckle. I forget all manner of little things, but I’ll never forget YOU. ♥️♥️♥️

Pucker up!

Wednesday, June 22, I officially turn into Methuselah. How could I possibly be THIS OLD yet so childlike? Or is it childish?  It’s not likely for me to decide.
I’m writing to admit that I now barely venture beyond this room. After Wilson passed, I succumbed to what was already coming but had fought valiantly in order to take care of him as I’d promised. COVID made surgeries impossible, while deterioration & pain have continued to increase. Now, Wilson’s caregiver Rena is tasked with taking care of ME! It might be creepy if we didn’t laugh at each other as much as we always have. I’m grateful for her help as well as her company.
I don’t know WHAT I’m going to do in the future. I only know I have much to write, much to organize, and very few resources. I was good at fundraising for Wilson for 13 years, and his fans & friends were all so generous & donated regularly to the Trust to help with his care, comfort & entertainment. It’s not NEARLY as easy to ask for such assistance for myself. But I’m asking today on my birthday, in hopes you will click on the PayPal button on behalf of ME! Wilson is gone, but I’m still here, with the same needs but less money now. Rena isn’t allowed as many hours by IHSS, to care for me, so she’s making half as much as she did taking care of Wilson, which is why I’m inspired to ask for help. I can’t bear to lose her. I won’t let her look for another patient for more hours. I can’t KIDNAP her…but I COULD give her something extra, from the Trust…if donations resumed.

I know! It’s not very FESTIVE to be BEGGING on my Birthday! I hate it! I’m so uncomfortable about it I’ve now written the most TEDIOUS post ever. I hope to write something far more entertaining another time, when I’m not so mortified.

Happy Birthday to me! I wish Wilson was here. He always gave me the BEST little drawing to celebrate this day! But a couple of presents have arrived, which I’m waiting to open with my morning cup of tea, after Rena arrives.
I hope this finds everyone well. Thanks for reading this. I will follow up with a more amusing anecdote another day. Peace & Love, kiddos!

King Neptune and his Mermaid, Druid

I wrote something about this Anniversary on FB, Instagram and Twitter. It’s been a year, missing Wilson every day.

I will return shortly with something worthy of your time! But for today I’ll just say thank you for being there and for donating to the Trust even after Wilson’s passing. The Trust is still here, the PayPal button still works, and I am still struggling.

I’ll soon share new pictures, and tell new stories. I’m tryna get strong so I can get outside with Rena’s help….before I turn into a mushroom under the house. Yes…She has stayed on as my caregiver now. I’d be lost without her!

I SHALL RETURN very soon.  Love to y’all……

I just tried to download new pictures, but here I am, on New Year’s Eve, and it won’t work AGAIN.

I will come back very soon, after I finish TEARING MY HAIR OUT and communicate with y’all, my beauties. For now, I think I’ll watch the fireworks in Dubai and get over this TEMPER TANTRUM I’m having about technology. And the world. And EVERYTHING. Oh shhhh. Just BREATHE, Lorraine…..and don’t go back in the kitchen til tomorrow!

Things will improve in 2022 or this tantrum might become permanently lodged in my sparkling personality.

I DO SO NEED TO GET OUT MORE.  Or at all.
That’d be positively revolutionary.

H E L P!

Dear Charlie…

No…I have not fallen and can’t get up. Well…not AGAIN anyway!

I am, however, stumbling about in this Museum of Art & Oddities, trying to make order out of chaos, and gradually making some progress as I adjust to the silence of life without Wilson. Nobody can quite describe what it’s like to have the focus of your every waking moment disappear from one instant to the next… replaced by memories that present themselves in tender reflection…or with unexpected hilarity. But those are the vagaries of the mind. Disorderly & unpredictable. I welcome the funny, endure the tearful and sometimes am gutted by a deep, cavernous longing that nearly brings me to my knees. I’m reminded of a short period a couple of years ago when my doctor prescribed an anti-depressant for me. I thought it was going to make me feel better, but within a few weeks I was way WORSE. So I stopped taking them. One day I raced away from Wilson to hide n the bathroom, muffling my sobs into a towel.
“Are you okay in there?” Rena knocked & cracked the door open slightly. I waved her inside, where she was surprised to find me grinning, with tears streaming down my face.

“Oh I’ll be fine…now” I said. “Now that I have my FEELINGS back”

I was miserable without them. I wasn’t exactly depressed…but neither was I ever exactly happy. I’d been stranded somewhere in an empty field where there were no feelings at all. TORTURE! I missed them. ALL of them. Feeling nothing was no comfort to me.

So I’m here in this unnatural solitude, jabbering on Facebook or Twitter, sometimes answering the phone…often wondering where the hell my PERSONALITY went? Grieving isn’t linear. The ups & downs have no pattern…no formula…time has taken me on this journey without a roadmap. I have no idea where I am in this moment…I’m not always in the driver’s seat. But looking back over these months I do know I’m making some progress. I’m just not entirely certain of my exact LOCATION right now.
The kindness & tech expertise of Zac Weinberg – clear over in Massachusetts – has reinstated the PayPal button, and made it possible to finally download photos on here again! Son of Jeffrey, Bookseller and publisher of  a new book of illustrated letters from Wilson to Charlie Plymel – father & son got together today and solved these problems I was incapable of fixing for over eight months in under one HOUR. I am beyond grateful…I’m overjoyed! A soft-cover edition of this fabulous book will be available soon, at a lower price, so more people will be able to afford to enjoy the fabulosity of Wilson’s prose. He was an inventive master of correspondence. This book will make you wish you’d had him for YOUR pen pal, too. He loved SNAIL-MAIL. He began every morning with a cup of tea, some World Music, putting pen & wit to paper. His workday didn’t really commence until after he’d bounced down to the corner mailbox & sent his jaunty anecdotes off to some lucky recipients. It was his way of “warming up” for a day of drawing. I’ll add a photo here just as soon as I can figure it out!
Thanks for looking in on me. I’ll write again soon & share photos as I find them. Thank you to those who donate to the Trust! It still exists, and the needs are very much the same only a bit worse without Wilson’s Social Security checks. I’m barely able to afford WiFi without your kind donations, much less the telephone or shocking dental issues! My dentist quit after making off with the money I paid in advance, leaving me in the lockdown with what I SWEAR are somebody ELSE’S TEETH….so I’m concealing a shocking secret behind my COVID mask until I can find a new dentist with a creative solution to my PURÉED DIET. This is terrible for a Laughing Girl such as myself! Once COVID is over I’ll have to switch to hiding demurely behind a lace fan until I can afford to start over.

Be safe & stay well out there, all you lovelies!

King Neptune & his bride

Wilson would have turned 80 today. I’m taking him down to the Bay, where I plan to launch him off the end of the dock at a friend’s bar. Something I’m surprised hadn’t already happened to him before, when he was alive!

Ill write more about the ceremonies taking place across the country all the way to France, in the coming week, after I can get someone here to fix this website & PayPal button. I want to include some pictures for you!

I think he’d have approved. He always did so love a birthday celebration..especially his own. I am so sorry he missed this one, but he’s gone off to see the world…a pirate in search of adventure. He must wait for his mermaid Queen to join him at a later date…he will, as always, have exciting stories to tell me…..

Until that time, I carry him gently in my heart.

Hi there friends…..

I’m sorry I haven’t written more. I can’t seem to download new pictures,so it’s hampered my ability to produce more content. I like to put pictures with my stories! And this one is about the DONATE BUTTON.

NOW PAYPAL has a new BUTTON CODE. So if you try to DONATE to me…and I do need this help…..PayPal says this account is DEACTIVATED!

NO! It’s not! But the BUTTON is an old code! I will try to see if my neighbor can help me fix it with the new code PayPal has emailed to me.

STAY TUNED! I’ll be back, and appreciate every single person who helped us for the 12 years I was taking care of my darling Wilson. You are all CHAMPIONS.
I miss him more every day. Anyone who says TIME heals all forgot to mention the ebb & flow of such a loss. Time, in this case, could be infinite. I’ve been struggling with it more as his birthday approaches…..

But I’m trying to snap out of it. I just started working with a Physical Therapist, and hope to become more ambulatory in the coming months.

I’ll fix this Donate button later today or HEADS WILL ROLL!

Love ye all.

It’s a nice day for…

I want to thank everyone who has been so generous since Wilson’s passing, and for all the kind condolences & cards. I had only just been locked out of my email address weeks before Wilson passed… I lost the password right before my old iPad died! I have no idea who’s written to me, and since it’s still active it looks like I received your emails. I haven’t, I promise! It probably looks like I’m so rude I’m not bothering to reply, which has driven me mad. Please comment on here, and I’ll write back to you from my new email address. I’ve lost all my contacts of 30 years at that address. What absolutely perverse timing!

It has been two months now, and I think I’m still in a state of shock. Tomorrow I’ll contact GoDaddy and find out why I still can’t download pictures here. I spoke with them for nearly an hour last week, to iron all this out, but it still won’t work! I have some beautiful pictures I took of Wilson just two days before he passed which I’d love to share with you.

I’ll come back when I’ve fixed this, and post a whole series of new photos. I hope you’re all well and getting vaccinated! We must try to reach immunity and get back to a semblance of normalcy.

Again, thank you for your generosity and for checking in. This loss has shaken me to my core, so the comments on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter have kept me going during what seems like a terrible dream from which I cannot awaken. My beautiful family of friends & neighbors and my tiny actual family have all been so kind while I flounder around in search of my footing, rambling around  this place filled to the brim with memories & collections of Wilson’s…but I’d prefer his presence far more than his things! It will take time. Sometimes I’m merely tiptoeing in the shallows of this grief….then suddenly I’m launched into the deep end, and it seems I must learn to swim all over again. I know I can do this….. ♥️

I’m so sorry to tell you that my darling Wilson died in my arms on Sunday afternoon, at 4pm. I’d played Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf & John Lee Hooker on YouTube for him all morning, then switched to Gyuto Monks chanting for Freedom at the Top of the World…he always loved that Tuvan Throat singing….I placed little solar lanterns on the bed as it got dark out…just party lights over the mantle…..he loved their soft glow…”we all need better lighting as we grow old, right,darling?” I’d laughed with him about that only the night before and he winked. I hadn’t heard his voice for two days, but he agreed with a tiny smirk.

I had promised I’d take care of him, protect him, and keep him safe. He trusted me to keep him alive for 12 years and I did that until it was truly time for him to go. He looked beautiful and at peace…he grew cold, and I raised the quilt up under his chin with his trusty smiling toy giraffe, Mambo, lying with his face right next to his, under the covers. I kept sitting with him and talking to him until they came at 8pm to collect him. A new carer, Stephanie, helped move the bookshelf & portfolios from the long hallway so they could take him out lying down, serenely. I was horrified at the thought they might have to strap him onto that firemen’s chair, bolt upright, weaving past that stuff and bumping down the five steps, to the sidewalk. I didn’t want them to hurt him or bump him……we made a nice wide empty hallway for him to glide through, his whole long length of him relaxed on his journey…

I know this website looked strange for several months, with a “Not Secure” notice…I didn’t know but someone tried to hack it! I was too busy with Wilson’s decline to even check it. But It has been scrubbed & made safe again.
If you feel inclined to donate to the Special Needs Trust again, Wilson’s very crippled Widow would very much appreciate it. I’m grateful for all the years of support you have given to us…you’ve made it possible to afford a phone, cable, WiFi, streaming movies for all these years! We’d have been cut off from the world without your generosity. For that, I thank you. Wilson loved watching movies every day, and at bedtime we always ended by watching a standup comic. He wasn’t able to speak, but he understood what was said, so sometimes he’d holler “Nahhh” and I’d ask “You don’t like this one?” And he’d say “NO” I’d laugh, agreeing with him, and search for another performer. “Pretty funny how you can’t remember how to brush your teeth, but you’re a MOVIE CRITIC and a know it all of all things regarding HUMOR. “Yahhhh” he’d say, self satisfied, meaning “How could it be otherwise?”

I quite agree and concur.

Please look on our Facebook pages for Tributes to him, and add your own. I’ll read them all. They are a great comfort.
I’ll continue to write on here, and hope you’ll check in now & then.

I will never stop loving Wilson. I’m alone in this house with all his things and our long history together. It doesn’t just end. I keep getting up to go check on him….I burst into tears like I’m doing right now. I don’t know how this is properly done..saying good bye…

But you all deserve condolences, too. I’m sorry for YOUR loss as well.

Big Love and gratitude….Lorraine

To view  GALLERY OF DRAWINGS – click on JUNE 2013