The Relevance of Three
Throughout my life, the number 3 has carried a significance that I’ve always been aware of. I was an only child with two parents, a father of three sons, and a man who was fortunate to have three longtime best friends. It is the last of these three with a heavy heart and full eyes that I want to share with you. Funny how just thinking about the three brings right to the forefront of so many good times we had together. And I wonder what kinds of times we would have if they were still here.
The last of my best friends passed away on a Monday night almost three years ago. His name was Jerry L. Saunders. Jerry had been fighting pancreatic cancer for the past few years. When he was diagnosed he wasn’t given much time but Jerry was a fighter in the literal sense. He had the Whipple surgery and was on different medications throughout his journey. Over his last year, he was dealing with a lot of pain and the pain was taking a toll on him. We talked in length about what we both were going through, but more importantly, we talked about our hopes and dreams for the future and so many reasons to continue keeping a positive attitude in the face of what we were both fighting.
Before I get into more about Jerry, it’s important for me to share more about what I opened with, the number 3. I speak and write mostly around the subject of men and masculinity. In that regard I believe that every man should have at least one man in his life that loves him like a brother. As I mentioned, I’ve been fortunate to have had three. The other two that were in my life besides Jerry, were Ellis Edwards and R. Stan Taylor.
Ellis
I first met Ellis I believe in the sixth grade, he, his twin brother Elliot and their family lived around the corner from my family in a predominately black community. We went to Jr. High school (this was when busing first started for racial equality) and then high school together. I spent a lot of time at their house and they were like family to me.
Their father Joe, like the majority of the men I grew up around in our neighborhood, was a serious man who would laugh but didn’t play. If you grew up around men like that you understand what I’m talking about. Ellis’ father and Stan’s father were men who you respected, not because they demanded it but because of how they carried and engaged themselves.
Ellis and Elliot loved to go fishing as I did, so we spent lots of summertime weekends enjoying time on river banks and lake shores around Metro Detroit. Some of our fishing trips were cut short, or worst ended before they even started, when we were in I think the 11th or 12th grade, as Ellis was now in love. So instead of getting their family car to go fishing, he got it to take his girlfriend out under the umbrella of going to cast a line in the water, much to the chagrin of both Elliot and myself. But as they say, life moved on.
When I left home to go to college Ellis’ girlfriend, Gretchen, who was also a good friend of mine, was enrolled at the same school. Prior to my third year in school, Ellis moved to be closer to her and he and I rented an apartment together and later a house for my remaining years of college. Ellis, like my other two best friends, had what I call “The gift of gab,” meaning they like me could talk with just about anyone on a wide variety of subjects. We were all filled with an intellectual curiosity that opened us up and exposed us to so many different worlds and allowed us to have many deep conversations that would carry on often into the wee hours of the morning.
Ellis stood somewhere between 6’-2” and 6’-4” with a slim but muscular build. He carried a smile that could disarm any negative energy and was a beacon to female energy that I may have benefited from a time or two. His laugh was infectious as were my other two friends. Ellis and I were both heavily into jazz and spent many evenings listening to jazz and playing chess. We were both pretty good chess players at the time. We also spent a fair amount of time at a local jazz club just outside downtown Grand Rapids, MI. This was back in the day, kind of what you’d see in old movies. A bit smoke-filled that would silhouette the band and leave a bit of mystery to many of the heads bobbing to the beat in the smoky haze.
One thing that stands out to me now as I think back about all three was, we each held a superior work ethic. Again, for Ellis and Stan, this was considered normal from where we are from, at least at that time.
Later Ellis ended up marrying his high school sweetheart back in our hometown. It was a kind of storybook wedding, his bride’s father lived in a large home in an older some what affluent section of town with a huge backyard. It was a summer day, with the scent of multiple kinds of flowers blooming filling the air that merged in a gentle but not overpowering way.
I never saw or heard Ellis happier than that day until a few years later after I had gotten married to my college love when he called and announced the birth of his first son. He and Gretchen were living in California where she was working in the advertising industry, her dad Bill had been a well-known and successful advertising man in the Detroit market. I don’t remember what kind of work Ellis was doing, I think it was with an electronics company of some kind.
A few years later their second son was born. During this time my wife and I had our first of three sons and flew out to California to spend a week with them. I thought it was so cool coming from Michigan to walk out in the yard and pick oranges and avocados right off the tree. Ellis and I talked often over the phone, we as always talked about life, family, and business ideas. Man, the guy had an incredibly creative mind and I knew he and Gretchen were destined for many great things to come.
The ray of sunny life took a dark turn a few years after our trip. I received a call from Gretchen that Ellis had taken his own life. I was devastated and confused. I had just talked with him only a few days prior and while he seemed a bit down in our call, we always had a way of cheering each other up. The feeling I held then and for many years after was, if only I could have talked to him, maybe, just maybe, I could have made a difference. I’ll never know, Ellis had demons he was fighting with that I wasn’t aware of and they were stronger than family or friends. I had never felt a loss like that, a piece of my heart seemed to have been forever taken away from me. This happened over thirty years ago, he was such a strong man, a vibrant man, a man who was determined to find success in life. He left behind a wife, and two young sons, who would never really know the man I knew who was their father.
Stan
I first met Stan sometime between the age of two and three. Our parents were friends and socialized together. Stan was the oldest and longest-lasting friend I had ever had, over 50 years. Something almost unheard of today. We were friends for what seemed like forever. We went to elementary school together. Played in the apple and fruit tree orchard across the street from my house in the summer and sled down what we called “Lickery Hill” in the winter. Not sure why we gave it that name. As an adult, I remember looking at that hill and thought it wasn’t much of a hill at all, just this gentle slope but as kids, it was our mountain and brought hours of snow-filled entertainment until we couldn’t feel our fingers and toes.
Stan and I didn’t go to the same Jr. High, I was bused to a different school even though Stan lived around the corner from me and two blocks away, and the line for busing didn’t include his house. We hung out some in high school but our relationship didn’t really take off until right after high school. The summer of graduating from high school we formed a club with a few other guys called the B. C.’s that stood for “The Black Connection.” We became pretty well known in our hometown for throwing some of the best BYOB parties around, often with live bands. My cousin Al, who I mentioned in another post, and who I play with in our current band, the first band he formed played at a couple of our parties. On top of that, we made pretty good money from each party.
Our parties were not of the small basement-type variety, we rented large halls that held several hundred people. I, Stan, and another member of our club wanted to invest our party money into buying rental homes. We really were making some good change. We had dreams of becoming real estate tycoons and living an independent lifestyle. Unfortunately, we were outvoted, so the money literally went up in illegal smoke, attending concerts, and in our pockets. I’m leaving out the times we drove around in one of our members, Wayne, older model Cadillac drinking White Port Wine and Kool-Aid, hey, don’t knock it until you try it.
One of the guys who was on our high school wrestling team, whom Wayne was our heavyweight and I wrestled 119 pounds on, had turned us on to that delightful concoction. A bottle of White Port, a pack of Kool-Aid, shake it up and you’re good to go. All of this happened during my summers home from college and during breaks. Just mentioning Wayne, I’m reminded of the time he and I got into an all-out movie type brawl with bottles breaking and flying chairs at a local bar with a motorcycle gang. I’ll have to share that story with you later.
Stan started working at a local bank right after high school and got married. He and his wife had one child together, a daughter. I spent many evenings at Stan’s upstairs apartment above the home where he grew up playing Spades. Stan’s first marriage wasn’t long-lasting.
After I graduated from college we spent a year or two still doing the B. C. party thing until it just kind of ended. Even today there are some gray beards that I only see at someone’s funeral bringing up the parties we used to throw.
I got married soon after to as I said my college love and Stan was my Best Man. I still spent time hanging out with Stan, playing cards, and watching Lions and Pistons games. He and I still played Spades together but our card games of choice became Texas Hold ’em poker and Tonk. If you don’t know what Tonk is you’ll have to look it up but if you grew up in a black neighborhood most likely you know what the game is. We moved on to having pretty regular poker nights with guys Stan worked with at the bank.
Stan was always conservative, from as far back as I can remember, both socially, fiscally, and as far as I knew politically. I wasn’t at the time. In the 1980s soon after I got married I started working for a Republican-turned-Democrat U.S. Senator for several years. As I generally say, I was not just drinking the leftist kool-aid, I was mixing it up and passing it out to others. All during this time I was struggling because I was having an internal fight with the conservative in me trying to emerge and I was doing everything to try and keep the conservative in me behind closed doors. Yep, another story down the road I’ll share.
Stan, like Ellis and later Jerry, was like a brother to me. We could talk and share about anything and everything and we did. We laughed together, cried together, and fought together. What always remained was a deep love and admiration for each other. Nothing from the outside ever got in the way of our friendship.
I think it was in the 80s when Stan and I started coaching basketball, first together then as separately coached teams. He and I did this for 23 years, working with 8th and 9th graders in a (YBA ) Youth Basketball League. It was some of the most fun and sometimes trying experiences I ever had as an adult. I gave so much and learned so much working with young men. Stan felt the same way and we would spend hours talking about coaching and how to help these young men move into manhood.
After Stan’s second marriage ended we started having regular every other Saturday poker games that moved around with a certain group of guys. Our games were never for any big money, the most anyone could ever lose in an evening was $30. By this time Stan had retired from the bank and was starting a second career working as a judicial aid for a local judge.
A few years later Stan came down with an autoimmune illness. I can’t remember the name of it now, but I remember doing some research on it and finding a local group where he could meet with other people who were dealing with the same illness. Stan was pretty bullheaded and wasn’t interested in attending any group. I think he saw it as a sign of weakness and he was anything but weak. The illness caused his legs to swell and mobility started becoming an issue for him. Because he was no longer able to get out like he used to, we started having our regular games at his house.
Stan’s illness progressed and he became housebound. We still had our regular games at his house, and I spent more time either on the phone or at this house watching sports and playing Spades. I could tell he was continuing to grow worst. Stan, even in his condition was determined to be independent. He didn’t want live-in help or assistance. While I was on a trip to Idaho I learned that Stan had fallen at home and died. My second brother was gone.
Like Ellis, I felt a part of me was gone also. My phone still shows our poker game schedule at Stan’s house and that was over 6 years ago that he passed away. We continued to keep our games going in memory of Stan until the Covid lockdown started two years ago.
Jerry
I first met Jerry in the late mid-90s. He was working at a store named Talking Book World. TBW rented books on tape. I was then Regional Director of the MI Small Business Development Center at Wayne St. Univ. My main office was in downtown Detroit and I had 8 other satellite offices in Wayne and Monroe Counties. I did a lot of driving and books on tape turned my car into “auto-university” as I listened to several hundred books on tape in my “personal university.”
I was in TBW several times a week and just started talking with Jerry about books and life. We had similar taste in books and I would often spend a couple of hours just talking with him. I’m not sure what year it was but after getting to know him over a few months, in November of whatever year that was I asked him what he was doing for Thanksgiving. He said he didn’t have any plans, as he was single and lived in a one-bedroom upper flat, so I invited him to our home for Thanksgiving dinner. Jerry was white and that was something I never paid any attention to, I only knew we shared much in common. Some people thought I was crazy, they said, “Kevin, how do you know he’s not some crazed serial killer and you’re bringing him into your house with your wife and kids.” I laughed and said, “You can’t read the kind of stuff we read and be a serial killer.”
As our friendship grew I learned he also had a black belt in karate, and we started training together at my dojo that was just down the street from TBW. I remember going to the dojo one Saturday and noticed Jerry’s car windows were down and his Walkman was sitting in the front seat. I went in and said to him, “Hey man you left your Walkman on the front seat with your windows down.” Jerry said, “Oh, that’s ok, if someone really needs it they can have it, it will mean more to them than it does to me.” Jerry did stuff like that all the time and nothing was ever stolen from him. He had an attitude and approach that was so very different than most.
You have to know that at this time, Jerry wasn’t making much money. He was working at TBW and had a little business painting house numbers on curbs. He was always industrious. Jerry was an Army veteran, a sergeant who started off in artillery and later moved to become a medic. Our friendship really took off after he got together with and who later would become his wife, Traci.
Traci was a registered nurse and Jerry with his training as a medic was now an LPN. They lived in an apartment close to our house and I visited often with Jerry and Traci. When we got together Jerry and I would spend hours upon hours talking about and working with internet marketing, in addition to talking about pretty much everything you can imagine around life, love, and living.
Jerry and Traci started doing a traveling nurse business and making pretty good money at it as they traveled the country. Their movements around the country never hampered our conversations and connection. We still talked for hours several times a week. Their plan was to make it to Alaska. When Jerry became ill, they were living in California.
I can so clearly recall the evening that Traci called me and said, “Kevin, he’s close.” He had fought for so long and had beaten the odds but he was in so much pain. So much so that at one point we talked late into the night into the early morning, because he thought taking his own life would be the best choice. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I just couldn’t lose another brother in that way and not do something to prevent it.
We talked about God and prior to his death, he found a church in California that he started attending and accepted Yeshua into his heart.
Every man should have at least one man in his life that loves him like a brother. I was fortunate to have three, Ellis Edwards, Stan Taylor, and Jerry Saunders, I can’t express how much I miss them. Even now I can still feel all of the emotions of our time together, but I can now smile knowing how fortunate I was to have them in my life for so long.
When Traci called and said he was close, I still don’t know how I was able to do it other than the love I had for him and talked with him on the phone, tears dripping from my chin and leaving a wet spot on my shirt. Jerry couldn’t reply back but Traci said “He lifted up his head and smiled.” Jerry and I always supported, encouraged, and loved each other. We had a common understanding of our struggle with cancer, that few others understood. His passing left another deep void in my life. The last of my best friends was leaving this earth, and moving on to a better place. I know what Jerry would have said to me if he was able would have been, “Kevin, never give up,” and I won’t. Even though I’ve had some really, really dark days and nights but I keep fighting, staying positive, and moving forward.
After getting off the phone with Jerry on that last night of his life I talked with Traci, doing my best to hold it together. I said to her, “Traci, thank you, please, please, keep in touch with me, I love you also.” I told Traci, “I’m going to try and write about what he meant to me. I’ll share it with you when I do.” She said to me, “I think he would like that. You and Jerry shared a special bond that nobody else will ever have. His passing takes a small part from everyone lucky enough to be his friend. Those holes are now the emptiness and pain that we don't see when letting someone in and that is always the cost, but the circle continues and we find ways to comfort that hurt, and usually, it is by doing something that we liked and learned from the other person to now be passed on continuing a small part of the one that has left.” Those were such powerful words Traci spoke and I continue to try and do that from what I received from each of them, Stan, Ellis, and Jerry.
I talked with Traci the next day after Jerry passed and she told me, “We finally had a civil wedding at the house last month. He was gone for the whole day and missed it all, but the couple that married us came back the next day and redid it so we have pictures from both days! It was sweet. They came last week and hung 8 pictures above our bed. Jerry never got to see them, but now he has. Made the wedding cake too! Will try and send some pictures to you via email. Have always loved you and marveled at your strength and triumphs with your health. More than ever, thank you for last night. You were a beacon in the dark night you helped him find his way. I could never repay you for that! Love you, Kevin! Keep in touch!”
You may think that’s the end of this story but it’s not. I stayed in touch with Traci for a bit, but I allowed my own stuff in my head to overrule what was in my heart. What I mean by this is, I’ve not been a great friend to her. My intent was there but with so much on my plate, I found excuses to not keep in touch as I wanted other than a random email. I’m going to change that this year, I think, no I know, that I’ve been reprocessing all three of my friends’ deaths and Jerry’s death brought up so much I needed to talk about that I didn’t know until now.
While, no one will ever replace the connection and love I had with Stan, Ellis, and Jerry, I do have two friends now whom I have to share my story about in an upcoming article, Terry and Bryant. Until then, my next story is one I mentioned at the beginning of this one, one that must be shared. I can tell you now that story will be a long one, and most likely shared in three parts. That story I’m titling:
My Yeshua Experience - The Prodigal Son (coming soon)