In the annals of tall tasks, a non-writer putting the proverbial pen to paper as a stand-in for a goodbye from one of the most talented writers I’ve read, has to be up there on the list.
Even more so, when that writer’s your Dad.
Dale Short was a proud son of Shanghi, Alabama – and he loved Walker County with his complete being. Five generations of our family called Shanghi home since the late 1880’s, including my Great-Grandparents, who were the most formative forces in both of our lives. Albert and Vera Brasfield passed down their strong belief that those modest acres of land just down the road from Shanghi Baptist were as close as you could get to the Garden Of Eden.
And they were right.
Dad kept that love front and center in his writing for years, in short stories and later as columnist for The Daily Mountain Eagle, where he got his first job as a writer in the late 1960s. His “homesick country boy’s reflection on the comforts, conflicts, and absurdities of living in the modern world” – resulted in one of his early books, I Left My Heart In Shanghi, Alabama.
As Dad put it, describing the period he was farther away from home than ever during the Vietnam draft, in U.S. Army boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri:
“When I lay down at night in my misery and contrition, the movie of remembrance I saw projected onto the back of my eyelids was not New York or Los Angeles or the paradise of some warm Gulf beach, but Shanghi, Alabama. I would walk all my old woods trails in slow motion and various seasons, one at a time, until blessed sleep came and then the nightmare of morning again, which I survived by counting the hours until I could close my eyes and be back in Shanghi. I promised myself, that terrible and interminable winter, that if I were fortunate enough to ever get back home I would never live more than an hour’s drive away from it, if I could help it, until the day I died. So far I’ve made good on that promise.”
And he continued to, until a few years ago – when the challenges of a long-running major depressive disorder made it a necessity to move him from Jasper closer to us, in the little mountain town of Casper, Wyoming, a place that I’ve called home and raised his beloved Granddaughter in since my career brought me West in the late ‘90s.
The sad tendency with matters of mental health is often to retreat into stigma and shame and leave it undiscussed – but Dad was a proud truth teller, and open about his struggles – writing about it years back as his personal clouds had receded, around the same time we lost the great Robin Williams:
“Hearing the comments on Williams’ passing reminds me that most people equate depression with a super deep sadness, but in my experience that’s not accurate. Best description I ever heard was from author William Styron, who compared severe clinical depression to being in a tight room where the temperature gets a degree warmer every day and a little more of the oxygen is pumped out. Styron, fortunately, recovered.
“In my own case, the emotional content is pretty much zero, except for an all-sapping weariness and suffocation of the soul and a vague fear of so much more of the same to come. I’m lucky…I continue to be in a really good place, overall. Have some ups and downs, but it’s been many a year since my brain even hinted at those lowest points when there’s no such concept as reasoning or envisioning.
“That last sentence is the hardest to fathom, I think, for someone who’s never walked in those dark shoes. A normal person, even when very low emotionally, perseveres by reasoning that tomorrow might be better, this too shall pass, etc. And also by envisioning good times to come in the future – with children, grandchildren, new friends and old friends, fun get-togethers when the dark clouds have lifted. But severe depression cuts off those mental abilities – reasoning, and envisioning better times – as completely as a hand clamped around the windpipe of someone of someone trying to breathe. The metaphorical heat rises, the oxygen gets more and more scarce.”
He fought to better his mental health and for the return of his creative gifts until the very end – when a previously undiscovered and fast-moving cancer sadly led to his quick passing.
His “voice” that many of us loved to hear in his writing has been silent for a few years now, which I think I’ve been grieving almost as much as his physical departure. His books still line my shelf, and have been a gift for us to revisit all these years later – precious memories, and so many of them the stories of you, the folks of Walker County.
As news of Dad’s death got around in the social media driven world we’re in – it brought our family a lot of comfort and smiles to hear from quite literally hundreds of you that were fond of him – from friends dating back to his school days at West Jefferson, UAB and ASFA students, various friends, literary colleagues, long time readers, and complete strangers that felt he impacted their life for the better.
Along with a proper goodbye, he’d want me to say an appropriate thank you for all your years supporting the thing he loved to do most – for reading his columns, for buying his books, for showing up at his readings and signings. He loved telling your stories, and knew it was an honor and a privilege.
And, if you’re struggling with battles similar to his or helping someone who is, he’d want you to keep up the fight.
In his words:
“If you’re in that frightening place, or have a friend or family member who is, it’s crucial to seek professional help immediately. Pleading with someone to ‘look on the bright side!’ and ‘you need to get out in the fresh air and exercise!’ are insulting to the basic humanity of someone in the grip of clinical depression. You might as well be saying the same shallow pleasantries to a person with a broken leg, or who’s on life support.
“Today there are more – and more effective – anti-depressant medications than at any time in human history. The downside is that medicines affect each individual brain differently, and finding the right one can take weeks, or months, at a time when each single day and night seems like years to the depressed person. Just one more reason why time is of the essence.
“And thus ends my sermon on the subject. God bless…the families of all those who deal daily with a soul-draining illness, and all the medical professionals who offer a light, however at times unsteady, to guide us all out of that darkness.”
Strength and love, from a proud son of a proud son of Shanghi, Alabama.
