My friend and mentor Judy Dothard Simmons died over the weekend. She was a good person who happened to be a great writer. A poet, she was a pioneer of Black news-talk radio (New York’s WLIB-AM) and national magazine journalism (Essence, Ms. ).
I thought I’d share a couple of her (group) emails from last year. They say a lot about her.
—————-
From: “Judy Simmons” <dexta@cableone.net>
To: “Judy Simmons” <dexta@cableone.net>
Subject:
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 09:40:42 -0500Dear Elisha,
It’s Saturday again. The week has flown by since you stopped here and graciously brought the Noni juice. I’m so glad you did that. It not only restored my basic support to me, but it also warms my heart that you are generous and understanding in your wonderful way.
I have decided not to have a laparoscopy. The second thing Dr. Huh said after introducing himself was that he didn’t want to do surgery on me because I would probably die on the table. Only one person, a doctor in Anniston who had never examined me before, raised the specter of ovarian cancer. That set everything rocketing off like crazy.
Then I arrive at UAB and nobody can see through the calcified fibroid tissue all over the place to discern where the womb is, what shape it’s in, or what kind of tissue the “mass” is. This takes us through cat scan, cat scan with liquid (not the dye, something else for contrast); vaginal echo, and ultimately MRI, which was supposed to give the one true answer for where to insert for a needle biopsy.
No dice.
Meanwhile, when they finally take of a couple of liters of fluid, within thirty minutes I have a fully formed stool, which hadn’t happened for a month.
The fluid that was removed does not seem to be coming back, and my bowel (with colace) is working two or three times a day. I have no pain, and my breathing is not labored. I do not have cancer.
Why go looking for a disease I show little sign of instead of looking at the disease I clearly have—congestive heart failure—which is known to produce fluid and symptoms of the sort I’m displaying? So, since surgery is surgery, laparoscopic or otherwise, and the doctor said in my hearing that maybe he could get in and out in 15 minutes and that wouldn’t be so bad, cutting me (invading the envelope) seems more of a risk than the possible diagnosis is worth.
Bear in mind that any mass, cancerous or not-cancerous, would sooner or later require surgery to remove, and it was made clear to me that no responsible practitioners are going to put me under general anesthetic and do the two- to four-hour (or more) operation to remove mass.
Who’s to say that where he goes in for the laparoscopy is going to be any more productive of non-fibroid tissue than all the other tests that showed him he can’t see what’s there anyway?
He talked about needing to find an anesthesiologist who was willing to take a chance on a heart in the shape mine is in, even for a spinal and sedation.
He said that even if it were cancer and he treated it with chemo first, it would eventually boil down to needing surgery and that isn’t an option.
So, basically, I would be submitting to a life-threatening procedure so the doctors can be certain about something that can only degrade the quality of my life by causing me risk, discomfort, and a healing procedure that, right now, my body is telling me in no uncertain terms that it is not up to. And since this good body has always risen to the occasion, no matter how I’ve jeopardized and neglected it, I’m listening now that it says, “Judy, I just can’t make this one. It’s asking too much.”
My Anniston cardiologist had a full-fledged two-year-old temper tantrum yesterday because I told him I would not get a pacemaker (for the ninth or tenth time; by the way, the UAB teaching hospital flower-of-the-south medical-center cardiology gods said a pacemaker would do me no earthly good, as I suspected). Then my cardiology said he didn’t think I had cancer—which is why I was sent to UAB oncology on the say so of a gynecology who had never examined before he stuck is finger into me in the hospital bed and opined with deep seriousness that I really, really, probably had ovarian cancer.
The cardiology told me yesterday he thought the fluid in my abdomen was consequent to right-side heart failure, but he refused to treat me for that unless I had a laparoscopy (which would never have occurred to him if this other guy hadn’t raised the cancer issue).
So, my cardiologist turned me back over to my primary care physician and refused to give me the benefit of his cardiology expertise on how to manage the excess fluid
collecting in the abdomen from diuretics and heart failure. There are medical manipulations he can do—he told me that—but unless I consent to a tissue diagnosis (which, again, we have no guarantee they will get, all other tests having shown no markers for cancer, he won’t help me any further.There was more stuff he vented which showed he thinks he has made me live, and that I have had no part in making decisions that resulted in his being able to help me, and preventing him from injuring me.
I grasped his hand in a shake and told him I was grateful to him for his help. Badtemperedly, he shook off my hand and snapped, “Don’t be grateful to me.” I took hold of his hand again, said again that I am grateful to him, and he basically threw me out of his office.
I’m listening to the fine classical jazz collection I’ve amassed over the years, putting my affairs in order, loving my dog and my friends, and generally having a good time for the first time in fifteen or twenty years. I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death and feeling damn good about it. I fear no evil, for I AM always and ever living.
So, for more info, call.
Judy
From: “Judy Simmons” <dexta@cableone.net>
To: “Judy Simmons” <dexta@cableone.net>
Subject:
Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2006 17:53:33 -0500Sixty-two doesn’t feel the same as thirty-three, and I think folks who say it does are lying. These great Indian seers who don’t breathe earthly air and put on and take off bodies like togas—I guess I’m ain’t one uh them. Also I just figured out that some of the unaccustomed sensations I have been thinking are ill health are signs of a body used for six decades.
I’m sittin’ up here in the house following the U.S. Tennis Open on tv. I listen to these people rattle on—the anchors, pundits, and hosts—and I’m torn between shooting them all with my high-vibration consciousness death ray or plunging back down to the depths where they don’t swim, sharks though they are. The death ray hasn’t worked so far, and being under water has its own drawbacks.
So, here I am, missing my radio show after twenty years, and without any media outlet for my spleen. I really liked being on WLIB AM, NY when it started the news-talk format in the 1980s. Then Philippe Wamba, the chief editor who made Africana.com an engaging web stop, put up with me from 2000-2002. He hired me as staff writer, editor, columnist, and insecure egotist. We both found out I was too old a dog (mid-40s) to do any corporation’s stupid pet tricks. He was kind, and kept me going for two years until he left and died some months later in an automobile accident in an African country. (If it were Europe, I would know it matters which country things happen in, but since it’s the Dark Continent, it’s all the same.)
Okay, so clearly I don’t have enough social life here, so when I want to party or converse, I’m just realizing, I send off one of these mass mailings. I figure the delete key is handy enough, so you shouldn’t get too annoyed, and a few people tell me they like getting what I write. For me, I’m realizing, it’s doing my radio show, which was very extemporaneous. It’s whatever it is that makes me need to be a public communicator (writer, broadcaster, contributor of information and sometimes knowledge).
Why don’t I do a blog? Because I don’t expect people to come to me. I have to be where they can catch my drift, as it were. And besides, this is personal in an immediate way. Feedback comes quickly as people are moved to give some—it’s not required—and I imagine how some of you look while reading this. It keeps me off the streets, and it’s about all the effort I’m up to giving.
And, I’m developing my communications skills. Language keeps changing. Plus, as I enlarge my understanding of how we people operate, I keep an ear out for the rhythm, cadence, and tones of the times. It’s about the gestalt. The way images move nowadays has so much to do with what people see and hear. When I was in psych school back in the day—(I could have said “school a million years ago”) but I think the “back” phrase has a more satisfying crunch; what do you think?)—anyway, when I took psych we talked about gestalt. As I understood it, it meant getting a whole picture that’s more than the separate pixels, stimuli, responses, actions, and so forth put together like a jigsaw puzzle. The individual pieces say “sky,” “grass,” “cloak,” or whatever, but the whole picture calls out emotional, aesthetic, and intellectual responses that are more than cardboard interlocking on a table.
Another question people ask me is why didn’t I stay in media and become an internationally famous personality. Well, seldom is one allowed to do such things on one’s own terms, and refuse to or can’t do them on any other.
So, those are some of my reflections this day. I didn’t rave on about how I can’t stand the most of what’s going on in our culture, given that the sole raison d’etre for much of it is the mindless and soulless pursuit of material wealth. There’s a difference between being the master of money and the servant of it. Guess which most us are.
Love, Judy
May 10 UPDATE: Here’s the official death announcement.
Judy Dothard Simmons
Judy Dothard Simmons, a noted poet, journalist, author and broadcaster, died on Sunday, May 6 in Anniston, Alabama from heart complications.
Since the 1970s, Judy’s thought-provoking writings and broadcasts had won her national acclaim. She had been a senior editor at Essence and Ms. magazines. Also, she had been managing editor for the NAACP’s Crisis magazine, a columnist for Harvard University/Time Warner’s Africana.com, and an editor at Black Enterprise. During the early 1980s Judy had a popular radio talk show on New York’s first Black commercial talk station WLIB and also on Pacifica’s WBAI. Her articles had appeared in The Village Voice, American Legacy Woman, and others. Also, she had been a guest on the Phil Donahue Show.
During the 1990s, Judy returned to Alabama and was a columnist for The Anniston Star. A celebrated poet, she was a Revson Fellow at Columbia University and did graduate work in poetry. Judy was the author of several books of poetry and essays including Decent Intentions, Judith’s Blues, and A Light in the Dark. She was also a contributor to the book Wild Women Don’t Wear No Blues. Her vibrant voice will be sorely missed.
Arrangements are being handled by Ervine Funeral Home in Anniston, Ala.: (256) 237-1717.
“Whose wonderful body is that on the cover of your book “Decent Intentions” I asked Judy in 1983 when the book first appeared, but she wouldn’t say. i had known her from appearing on her radio show and from appearing together in Blind Beggar press anthologies. Later she published me in Essence’s “Say Brother”section and always told me that she loved my writing style. I moved south in ‘89 and she sometimes during the 90s. In 2002 I sent a book I had published. she called me and said that she love my writing style, but she didn’t like the book. I asked her if I could come and wait on her -hand and foot - she was cool to the idea, but loved that I loved her. and when Baraka’s girl died we talked about it, she said call him. I didn’t. then I let too much time let between us saying hello and just today I fine that this fine lady has gone to rest and i look at the cover of her book and say Judy I know that’s you. But that’s not why I love you so.
Horace Mungin
September 14th, 2007
To whomever this concerns,
I was saddened to learn of the death of Judy Simmons. I don’t even know how old she was.
She died, coincidentally enough, on my birthday of May 6th.
I had heard her a few times on WLIB. I’m a White person, and have had almost nothing but contempt for the so-called Struggle against Racism, (with few and far-between exceptions here and there) of which that station was part and parcel, but still, she seemed like a nice-enough person. I was rather rigid at the time, in expressing myself (a result of my extreme reaction to the above-named), and left her with the impression that it had been better off that we (as individuals) had not met. I was actually referring, at the time, to the races, and not the two of us, but we got off on the wrong foot, to put it mildly. Even THAT perspective doesn’t come close to representing my attitude(s) towards integration, which is rather complex. It is truly a “mixed bag”, and my views are a bit too complex to be gone into in any great detail now. I did try to clarify my views with her some time afterwards, but she was soon due to go on stage for some stint, and she was not particularly receptive towards me. I wish I had gotten another opportunity, so that at least, she would know “where I was coming from”, but unfortunately, now, that is (to use another cliche) “water under the bridge”. By the way, somehow her name just popped into my head today, and I decided to do a google for “judy Simmons WLIB” and I learned of her death that way, though I’m far from being especially psychuc.
Yours truly,
Mark
Mark
May 11th, 2008
Judy it has been along time since we spoke, but I always thought that I’d see you again.
Peace my friend
Paulette
July 27th, 2008
Judy I remember when we were riding in your car and we came to a dead stop and it was the end of the road. I remember we laughed.I can hear the laughter still.
Paulette
Paulette
July 27th, 2008
Judy, I loved you, but in the last year of your life I wasn’t there for you. I was consumed with my own life’s drama. And your amazingly brilliant yet acid tongue had wounded me, making me retreat from you. But I always meant for us to reconnect. We met in college. We sang together in summer stock in Amador County, California. We helped form SNCC at Sacramento State together. We loved the same man. You were black, me white. I went to LA. You to New York. We came back together a few memorable times between 1966 and 1995. But we remained in each other’s hearts. Then in 1995, while you were in Anniston taking care of your mother with Altzheimers we reconnected. But only on the phone with monthly, sometimes more, long and delightful talks that fed my soul, and I believe yours. You were more important to me than I think you ever realized. Now, it is Nov. 9, 2008. Six days ago the first black president of the United States of American was elected. I needed to talk to you. To celebrate with you. To say, look girl, it happened. All our work. All our care and belief has paid off. But you weren’t there. Your phone was disconnected. I called another J. Simmons in Anniston, and a perfect stranger said, “Oh, yes, I read it in the paper. She died. I didn’t know her, but she seemed like a wonderful person.” And all I could say, was that, yes, she was a wonderful person. I got off the phone and cried for the loss of my friend, for the missed opportunity to share this miraculous moment, and for my own weakness that kept me from you during the final year of your life. But when the tears subsided, I remembered our deep spiritual connection, and I could feel your love, and hear you saying with that sly smile, “Oh, Barbara, my sister, you always make such a drama out of things.” So, my dear sister, Judy Dothard Simmons, I love you. I know you are dazzling them up there on the higher planes with your brilliance, beauty, and talent, and I just want to say, keep the faith, baby. We did. And look where our world is. A black president, my friend. And you and your magnificent voice helped put him there.
Barbara
Barbara Wilder
November 9th, 2008
Barbara, I’d give away all of my 1960s Fantastic Four comicbooks to read a JDS essay on President-Elect Obama. We’ll just have to listen closely for what her spirit might be saying in the wind, or late at night.
Todd Steven Burroughs
November 12th, 2008