Dear Gail,
I feel the same way. I often come here to just look at his
picture or to remember how he loved to interact with the
poets. The last few years of his life he was often too weak
to do more than force himself to do his teaching and sit and
type.
Oh, my goodness, how that boy did type! Books and
thousands of poems and comments all over the globe to his
friends. Notes to me. I've never seen anyone love his craft
the way Tony loved writing poetry. Perhaps it was the way
he discovered his talent late, only eight years or so before
he died. After all of the busy years in the military, he found
his real love while in college and during the time he was at
school teaching, his mind found poetry everywhere he looked.

He told me that all he wanted out of life was to be able to
write poetry all day. I suspect that is what he did on the weekends excpept for watching sports and the history channel. He loved this land and wanted to know how it got
where it is.

He admired the men who fought World War II so
very much. He found something in their sacrifices that he
apparently didn't find in the other horrible wars in which we lost family members.

It took a man who had walked in the war zones, fighting
for his own life to be able to really appreciate his comrades.
I held the bullet which missed his head by an inch and which he dug out of a tree. He had not written poetry then and Tony Spivey was supposed to write poetry.
He also has left a teaching discovery which will help millions of children.

It is very hot here today and will be almost one hundred
degrees tomorrow. I still will probably drive forty miles to say a prayer at his grave.
His cousin, Michael K. Spivey, who was killed last year in a helicopter explosion in Afghanstan is buried in Fayetteville, North Carolina and his family is traveling 500 miles to lay flowers on his grave. He was 22, very handsome,
beautiful of mind and soul. He and Tony were good friends.

It is a time of great loss for many families. Tony died from a military related illness, but he had always wanted to die at home and God granted him that wish. I can't help but think of
the cowboys who wanted to die with their boots on. Tony's sister kept the shoes he had on that day as a memory, so I think she has the same thought.

I have the shirt he had on, but more important to me, I have a little garment he wore when he was a baby. How sweet those memories of his youth are to me. He seemed to be all mine. His father worked out of town a lot and Tony and I spent a lot of time alone. I had no telephone and his dad had our car, so Tony and I took long walks. He sat proudly and happily in his stroller and enjoyed the ride. He always enjoyed going somewhere, as long as he was healthy.

Gail, you invited me to write my memories of Tony and I will
gather myself and do that. Meanwhile, I am having to talk about him now and then. I was more than lucky to have him as long as I did. I was blessed to be his mom and to have the
deep love which he felt for me. That sustains me when I feel
very lost. I hope all sons and daughters as well make sure that
their parents know how much they are loved and repected. It
might be the memories that they are left with. Young people
do not expect to die, but they do.

Gail, I know that you will treasure your son and remember
the little things to do and say. Your heart is full of love for
him and it shows. God bless you both.

With love, Sylvia