This is intended to be the final installment of celebrating Nancy. I’ve covered many topics in how she was special and how she affected others. I began Sunday, August 11th with an announcement and about Nancy as a children’s pastor. Then how we met in Hawaii, how she was for the birds, how she loved plants, bushes, and trees. Next was how Hawaii was a theme in our lives. Next was her children, then her family. Yesterday was about her interest in cemeteries. Today comes full circle with my life with Nancy.
I was in a songwriting period from 1983 through 1988 (then again from 1998 through 2002), and after meeting Nancy in Hawaii, then going to southern California to stay with her another week, I returned home and wrote several songs about Nancy. Only one was worth recording to me, and it was called Nancy’s Eyes. I mentioned this song in a post on January 14th, 2010. Here’s the song:
The idea of the song was interesting and different for me in that it approached the idea of love as if our love for someone else was a reflection of ourselves, even when we didn’t realize we were that way.
When Nancy moved up here in June 1987, I owned a little recording studio with two other people. I had this song and the basic tune, but it was one of my partners and also a roommate at the time, Dan who helped me record the song. He played piano and added a little lick to the song that took it to a different level. He put it on tape along with some lead notes and I loved what he did with it.
It was just a basic demo type recording, and I sang the song. When it came time to do the vocal, I had Nancy sit in front of me in the studio and I sang and recorded it singing the song to her. I had never done anything like that before.
The story expands.
When I met Nancy, she had a VW Cabriolet Convertible that she bought used from the car dealership where she worked. She loved that car. After 15 years in the car business for me, I had always taught my salespeople that if they were going to be good at selling new cars, they should own one. I led that by buying quite a few over the years. I was also very loyal to the brands I sold. In this case, it was Chevy, Olds, and Cadillac. So you can imagine with that attitude, what I thought about a foreign car in the driveway. She obviously didn’t have the same attitude.
Her VW also had an engine vibration. It had 50,000 miles on it and I thought up any kind of reason that made any sense to have her let go of it and drive something I represented. Finally, she acquiesced, and I let her choose what car of the ones I sold she would like, and we bought a top of the line Oldsmobile Ciera International in gray metallic. After a week or so, she exclaimed how much she liked the car, and we owned it for a few years.
However, I didn’t feel as good about the whole deal as I thought I would. Inside, I always felt that I had taken something away from her that she loved and it always bugged me while owning the Ciera.
So, working in Santa Rosa at a Chevy store, there was a VW store next door and in 1991, I bought, without her knowing about it, a new 1991 VW Cabriolet Convertible, white on white with a white top. But, I had to do more. She was on a trip with her kids in my Cosworth Vega (yes, I owned and loved a 1976 Cosworth Vega). I had a driver bring Nancy’s new car home and I parked it in the carport with a big bow on it. Next, at the time I bought the car, I applied for a personalized license plate related to the song, Nancy’s Eyes, and it became NANCZ IZ.
And that is how Nancy’s Eyes and NANCZ IZ became a theme in our lives. Her email name was NANCZIZ. Later on, she wanted a full-size car to accommodate her parents and we got a Toyota Avalon and transferred the license plates to that car which I still own with 215,000 miles on it. It has been a wonderful machine and still is. It was Nancy’s car and she drove it all over creation. We went to Wyoming in it, and I drove her around in it when she could no longer drive.
I guess that I made up for taking the car she loved away way back when. If nothing else, my attitude changed and that undeserved loyalty I was holding on to went away for good. It’s people that matter. My wife mattered. Anytime I might have failed her in some way and I knew it, I did whatever I could to make up for it. This is one story of that and how Nancy’s Eyes, which caught my attention immediately in Hawaii before I was even introduced to her, became something that was a theme throughout our life together.
“The World Is A Great Mirror. It Reflects Back To You What You Are.” — Thomas Dreier
Spread Some Joy Today–Express your joy and love today. There is no benefit to wait.
Note: For interested parties, Nancy’s service is Friday, August 23, 2013, at 2pm at New Hope Christian Fellowship. See more at www.newhopevv.com