Ola Vaughn
Ola and I were truly best friends forever. She liked to call me her BFF. She was so young at heart. It really didn’t matter how many years she had been on earth. She was hip and cool in her own Southern way. I found out she was born in 1931 and grew up in Nashville. She and I would drive around the ever growing and expanding city of Nashville and she would remember what it used to be like when she young. We would have lunch and maybe a couple of drinks sometimes and we could talk and laugh and even cry because we couldn’t hold back the tears. We had a shared experience that brought us together.
I met her at Southern Care Assisted Living in Franklin. My wife Linda had just moved in there to spend some of her final days. Her husband Billy had already been there a couple of years. I was new to all of it and she had been dealing with her husband being gone from home for about the past 4 years or so already. One day at lunch at Southern Care where we could be with our partners, she said she was going to the Cannery that night. I said what?!
It was a rock and roll music venue. She said yep. There was an art extravaganza event with booths and a fashion show, and I went and there she was with a couple of friends being lively and I realized she was also a whole other person than just the caring wife at Southern Care.
We became fast friends. She helped me find the right care for Linda when I was able to bring her home to pass away. I was given the perfect mother/ daughter team to care for her. She did so many things to help others.
She had a grounded and somewhat salty way of truth that was also light and caring and Southern. A very special combination. There is so much involved in dealing with the death industry that can make a person a bit crazy and even angry and she helped guide me through a very strange and difficult time. I could always count on her.
Linda passed, Billy passed and we had each other to share our grief and the long trip to becoming ourselves again with new life before us. We would have a lunch and be laughing and then it could turn with just a comment about what we had been through and much needed tears could come through. It was a balancing act of therapy.
Time passed and she would come to hear the band I play with called the Long Players. I would save her a table on the balcony above the stage where she and her daughter Kathleen and other friends could near and see the band well. Here she was, in her 80’s coming to see every show of a rock band. How cool is that?
There are so many little adventures and secrets we shared and good times now that we were over such a difficult period of loss. We relished that we both knew what we knew and had grown with time to a new place in our lives.
She was one smart cookie and liked to keep in touch on Facebook and ancestry and go to the V and have a good time with her friends. We even performed there on her birthday. She sang ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’!
Ola was a truly special Lady and friend. One of a kind. I hope to see you on the other side Ola.
Love
Steve
