Coy Wayne Stewart... remembered
I'm not sure where else to place this post... please indulge me as a Lansing Heritage co-founder.
My dear friend Coy Wayne Stewart died this morning about 3:30AM. I've known him since 1973 and we've endured a lot of good and a few not so good times in those 40 years, while never having a cross word with each other. I met Wayne when he was sharing an apartment with another old friend plus a third guy. The friendship with the other guy eventually fizzled but my relationship with Wayne has withstood 40 years of occasionally intermittent but mostly fairly regular contact, for whatever odd reason. How does one really define friendship? Whenever I would try to explain some audio concept to him he would look confused until I said "It makes it sound better" then he would say "uhh, okay." It was part of our regular shtick, along with entire conversations comprised of "Pulp Fiction" dialog quotes. "Sheeit, negro, that's all you had to say"!
Wayne apparently had a relationship with some girl long ago that ended badly. He never spoke of it directly but it was a subtext to many of our conversations. He didn't have any significant involvements in the past forty years to my knowledge, an (almost) commonality that drew us together, methinks. Once I brought a hooker into our room in Ensenada and heard this disembodied voice in the darkness say "I don't believe this" before he ventured outside for a smoke.
Wayne had a superb, ultra-dry sense of humor. Once when we had stopped in the absolute middle of nowhere on the way to San Felipe, Baja, California, I gave a cold beer to a local fellow who was walking past carrying a heavy load. When I commented that the guy had seemed nice, he commented "Well you never know; he might have Shorty Shea in that bag."
Wayne struggled with health problems beginning in about 1980, when he began having trouble keeping his meals down. When we drove the length of the Baja peninsula in 1984, he was throwing up constantly and losing weight. After three highly experimental stomach surgeries the Veteran's Administration patched him up pretty well, though he continued to smoke like a chimney the whole time I knew him and this led him to eventual strokes, aneurysms and... death. He couldn't stop, he wouldn't even consider it. I usually shared a couple smokes with him these last few years when we'd visit. Nothing would brighten his mood like bringing him a couple of packs. He lived with his mom who survives him at 88, having lost all three sons at this point. She is understandably sorrowful, but glad that he is out of his misery. I guess that describes me as well, as Wayne spent the past month in a nursing home (they're all horrible!), aware of the dire circumstances that his fate was to remain there until the end. I was planning to bring him a laptop computer to enjoy his cherished classic movie collection on DVD, but alas time ran out.
My sister came over today, my birthday, and we retraced a few of my journeys in Baja with Wayne on Google Maps on the desktop. Along the way I realized that what matters in life is not really accomplishment, possessions, prestige or any of that superficial stuff... it is those often inexplicable but ultimately satisfying friendships with those who are dear to you! So long, old friend.
