Big Yellow Taxi
“Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone”
- Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
How many times in your life have you known someone just a little? Enough to recognize them and to say hello? Enough to know their first name? Maybe enough to know they have children and maybe enough to know their kids’ names and ages?
Maybe it’s Jim the produce manager at the supermarket. Or Connie who has a small retail business. Or Jodi who works in retail and who’s a friend of a friend.
Well, for me it was Frannie. I didn’t see Frannie often. She worked on and off at the Turtle Beach Café on the Bethany Beach boardwalk. The 9:59 Club crashed there regularly. While there was a normal amount of staff turnover, there were many constants like Rachel and Bertie. Frannie was an inconsistent constant. She’d be there for a week and gone for a few months and then suddenly she’d be back.
Everyone at “The Turtle” is friendly and personable. Frannie was too but she was also a force of nature. Frannie didn’t just walk into The Turtle, she exploded in the door, walking a mile a minute and talking faster. She didn’t ever giggle, she’d bust out laughing.
Frannie was one of those larger-than-life people we each would be lucky to know.
And on an average Monday in January, Frannie didn’t feel well and laid down to take a nap. She never woke up.
Representing the 9:59 Club, I drove up to Wilmington to pay my respects to Frannie’s family. Just like Frannie, her funeral was larger than life. Held in a ginormous Catholic church, there were dozens of friends and family grieving. If that wasn’t enough, her hearse was escorted by 20 or 30 members of a local motorcycle club. It was a grand spectacle befitting a terrific person who lit up the lives of so many others.
My heart is still heavy; Frannie is not someone you easily forget.
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