I Love You, Wayne. OK.

By the Republican River and the Arikaree
There's a beautiful girl that I long to see.
I know it won't be too long, I'll be going back soon
To see her smile beneath the bright prairie moon.

Oh her face is so fair, and her eyes they shine
So, it makes a warm glow in this heart of mine
And the sound of her laughter fills a whole room with glee
And her smile is the brightest thing in the world to see.

Though I've rambled the mountains and the valleys wide
Right now all that I want is to be by her side.
I'm going back home to the sand hills, and I'll ask her for her little hand
We'll live our lives out together in the sagebrush and sand.

By the Republican River and the Arikaree
There's a beautiful gal and she belongs to me.
I'm going to sing her my song, and I hope this happy little tune
Will make her smile beneath the bright prairie moon.

-- Fergus Stone, "Fay's Waltz"

This entry is a little long, and unedited. I hope to polish it up and impart even a little of Fay's power to the reader. I hope your reading effort is rewarded.

Fay Lenoia McVey died on Saturday, May 17th, 2003. She was 84 years old.

Fay and husband Wayne's son Bill played music with my dad for over 20 years. After Bill died 13 years ago, the band started making yearly trips to his boyhood home of Haigler, Nebraska. Nestled in the southern Nebraska sand hills, Haigler is the closest town to the junction of Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska. The city limit sign says "Pop 211." There are a few more folks living outside the city limits, but it is nothing if not a small high plains ranching town. In a town like that, a bluegrass concert is one of the highlights of the year, and it was an even bigger deal for the McVeys, who always showed us boundless grace as hosts.

For a kid that spent his whole life in Boulder, trips out to the ranch in Haigler produced a wealth of new experiences. We knew we were nearing the ranch house when we saw Wayne's worn-out boots on the fence posts. Before we'd arrive, he'd clear the pastures of rattle snakes, blowing off their heads and tossing them in the truck or gathering them all together in a big drum. Tied to a couple trees was a 55-gallon drum with a saddle that young Clay McVay would ride to practice his rodeo skills. Before the concert, the American Legion hall would fill with T-bones as big as your plate and nearly hot off the hoof, pasta salad, and five different Jell-o salads.

All of that is fairly standard fare for western Nebraska. The most interesting and powerful thing about Haigler was Fay McVay.

Fay had a stroke in 1981 that severely damaged the left half of her brain. She lost almost all function in the right side of her body and couldn't speak. After five miserable years in a nursing home in Wray, Colorado, she had relearned to say "Wayne," which she used to get people's attention and, with prosody, indicate how well they understood her needs. Wayne brought her back home and her mental state improved. When I knew her, her vocabulary consisted of "Wayne," "Okay," "Yuck," "No," and "I love you." "Okay" was her utility word. It could be a question -- "Wayne? Okay, Wayne?" while pointing at something on a shelf. It could be an explanation aide -- "Okay. Okay." while showing off the people who'd signed her guestbook. It could be verification -- "Okay!" when you discover what she wants. "Yuck" was her word of disapproval. Many a grisly story was met with an "Oh, yuck!" But "I love you" was her most powerful phrase. Once that white-haired wheelchair-bound woman uttered those words, you'd do anything she asked. She said it with such feeling and varied prosody that you had no doubt that you'd done exactly what she wanted.

It would be easy and trite to say "Despite her limited vocabulary, Fay had no problems communicating." It would also be false. Her school teacher steel trap of a mind understood perfectly what everyone said, and everyone in Haigler knew how to interact with her. But a five-phrase vocabulary and only half a body of mime can only go so far in day-to-day communication. Sometimes it just wasn't clear what she needed, and she'd get frustrated and bossy, especially with her grandkids. But what she lacked in precise symbolic comunicativity, she made up with direct communication to the soul. I cannot do justice with the hypertext markup language. If I meet you in person, ask me to demonstrate for a pale impression of the full prosodic effect.

"I love you" is not a common phrase among the cowboy culture of the high plains. It's unheard of between people who don't know each other really well. But when Fay looked up with a twinkle in her eye and put so much force and raw feeling behind it, even the sternest-faced Sandhiller would smile and say "I love you too, Fay."

A lot of people in Boulder talk about universal love, but I never feel love from them. They're too far lost in the clouds. When Fay reached out her left arm and grasped my hand and looked me straight in the eye and said "I love you," I could feel the truth. I could feel her energy. I could feel her spirit, and it was strong. And so could everyone else. And they could tell that Fay was special, that there was magic in her voice that could infinitely vary five simple phrasewords.

In the last thirteen months I've spent a lot of time thinking about, talking about, and practicing powerful nonverbal communication. But for some reason, I never thought about Fay in that time. Her perfect speech understanding and her past life of language meant that she was far from a contemporary example of purely mimetic thought. But I experienced the same feelings of connection, love, and communicative triumph with her as I have in nonverbal ritual.

Saturday marked the passing of one of America's most powerful and fascinating crones. Oh yuck. I love you Fay, okay?