20 Years: Remembering DeForest Kelley

20 years ago today, DeForest Kelley’s 79 years of life on earth ended.

 

I was at his bedside.

 

But his legacy lives on, so the line he spoke over Spock remains true:

 

“He isn’t really dead … as long as we remember him.”

 

Many people say (and I concur) that we should remember his life, not his death.

 

I’m all for that.

 

But because I was his personal assistant and caregiver during the last few months of his life, June 11th punishes me every year. It marks the last time I was in his immediate presence. After a 31-year adventure of meeting, getting to know, and loving the man, it was over.

 

June 11th is the scar on every calendar that reminds me of the separation. June 11th will always be a day of  memories and mourning for me.

 

Every year on this date, De’s fans reach out to me on social media and via email to send me “thinking of you” messages and kind words. Like me, they can’t get past June 11th, either, without acknowledging the fact that we’re all still missing and loving the man like crazy.

 

(We still have the actor to enjoy–his portrayals pop up on Bonanza, Star Trek, and other retro TV series and motion pictures–but it isn’t the same. Even YouTube interviews with him don’t satisfy us sufficiently because being interviewed just isn’t the same as being friends and speaking candidly about whatever crosses our minds.)

 

This year on this date, I’m just four days away from a speaking engagement in Forks, Washington (Raincon at the Rainforest Arts Center) where I’ll be telling an abbreviated version of my adventures with De and his wife Carolyn. I’ll have just 45 minutes to an hour, so I’ll have to be strategic.

 

My presentation outline looks like this:

When and where we met the first time.

De gets my creative writing essay about meeting him published in TV Star Parade, officially launching my writing career.

Mom talks me out of becoming his pen pal.

We reconnect during the 20th anniversary of Star Trek in Spokane; the Kelleys insist that I stay in touch.

We become pen pals. I’m in seventh heaven as a pen pal because writing is my favorite thing to do and I’m very good at it. (“Writing is show business for shy people.”)

In Denver, I get another chance to meet them up close and personal during a dinner and I’m a nervous wreck, feeling certain I’ll disappoint them as a human being even though I’m a hoot as a pen pal because I’m shy and retiring, not at all gregarious or ebullient. I manage to survive the reintroduction but I’m still painfully shy and star struck.

The Kelleys encourage me to move to Hollywood and then do everything within their power to help me get my foot in the door there.

My letters to  my parents convince them I’m head-over-heels star struck and no longer in my right mind.

Finally, they meet the Kelleys and become equally Kelley-smitten, apologizing to me and telling me I’m one lucky person.

Mom is diagnosed with a brain tumor; De gives her a physical and blessing that she carries through to the end of her life.

Read the letter I wrote to him when he got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Open up the event to questions from the audience.

 

I may be biting off more than I can chew, but I believe I can fit that all into a single hour.  The fans who want more can get my books DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal: A Harvest of Memories from the Fan Who Knew Him Best; The Enduring Legacy of DeForest Kelley: Actor, Healer, Friend, and (between now and January 20, 2020, the 100th anniversary of arrival on earth) all six volumes of Kelley Phone Tag: The Rest of the Story.

 

But for now…for today… I’m going to be remembering the last few months, days and hours of his life. A lot happened during that time to convince me that I’m not wasting air space on this planet. I finally realized during those closing days and hours that I do measure up, that I can survive just about anything, and that we all need to listen to the yaysayers in our lives instead of the naysayers…

 

I learned, in those final days, what it’s like to be truly loved and needed.

 

The song FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE, sung by Robert Goulet, came on the radio one day while I was driving De from his home to the hospital. I was living every word, agonizing over every word because they seemed so apt in the situation I was in as De’s PA and caregiver. I had no idea he was feeling similarly until, just as  the song ended, he said to me, “I need you, dear girl.”

 

I will never forget that as long as I live. Because I needed him, too, for every moment he was a part of my life.

 

I still need him, and I know you do, too.  That’s why I wrote the books… so we can all keep him alive.

 

He isn’t really dead, as long as we remember him.