Big Mack Daddy

Our friend - Billy Mack - died this last summer.  He is missed. He left two wonderful young women behind; his daughters Leisha and Lauren. And I have to think that in his life they were what he was most proud of. They were a testament to, and a record of, the best of him. He was, to use a cliche; larger than life. To walk into a room and be greeted by his hollers of "Oh, oh, be still my heart" was always a thrill and I loved it. I loved him. He was my daughter's god-father and her dad's best friend.
 A poet, a lover of wine and food and life and most of all music. He would send you his favorites. He would write a poem about you and lose it. He drove like a mad man and smelled like cigars. I have a photo on our wall that is a collage of old rodeo postcards that was his and I had to clean what must have been 20 years of cigar smoke off the glass. Okay there might have been some other substance mixed in there too. This photo of him sits above the light switch that turned on his dining room lights. We ate there and played poker there and loved his little girls there. We talked through marriage and divorce and back again. I like that I can see his finger prints on the switch. I have his hat and his rodeo picture. I miss him. When I look at his girls I see his smile. What a lovely thing to have given your children.