Remembering Dorothy

A few months ago, around mid-June, on a Monday morning at 10 a.m., we ladies gathered for our usual golf game followed by lunch at the Ritzville Golf Course clubhouse. One among us was struggling with personal tragedy, and as she stood alone, organizing her clubs on a cart, I approached and greeted her. She turned to me, spoke three or four words, and suddenly teared up, unable to control her sorrow.

I put my arms around her in an effort to comfort her, and within a few seconds we were surrounded by the other women who had noticed her distress, knew her struggles, and gathered to console her.

We hugged her as we murmured soothing words and reassurances until she was able to pull it together again. Girlfriends were the medicine she needed that day.

We women thrive on our friendships. Nearly all of my friends are well-married women, and yet we all seek out girl friendships. There is a quality about our friendships that enhance our lives. We laugh, cry, display emotion, grow, encourage, shop, share, play and care together. No other relationship compares with it, just like nothing else is quite like parenthood or wifehood. Our girl friendships are unique and we cherish them.

Dorothy Clinesmith was one of us. As my ever-brilliant and lovely niece Avia said about her, “She’s who we all want to be when we finally grow up.”

I couldn’t say it more succinctly.

Dorothy died Monday. What a loss. It will hover over us like the black cloud of Linus’ in the Peanuts comic strip.

Dorothy would tell us stories, which often ended with her grabbing her shotgun and shooting some poor critter that had the ill fortune of crossing her path or her property. Recently she told me of a couple of young coyotes that had ventured onto her property and hovered close to her house. One she shot on the spot. The other she chased in her truck until it finally ran off through the wheat and she could no longer see it. Her last words on the subject were, “I’ll get it if it comes back on my property,” and I have no doubt she would have.

Being a big city girl until six years ago, Dorothy’s attitude toward critters seemed extreme to me until she explained her rationale in her straightforward manner. God gave us dominion over the animals according to Scripture, and Dorothy wasn’t going to let any of them cause her concern. Young coyotes hadn’t yet learned to fear humans and were therefore dangerous. Dorothy refused to live in fear. She could spew common sense like a volcano spews ash.

My husband Mark admired her and dubbed her Ritzville’s Annie Oakley. She had the demeanor of a no-nonsense woman who could take care of herself.

I saw other sides of her, too, on those special occasions when I was ushered around the golf course in her golf cart. She was very dear, gentle, smart and capable. She loved her family and humorously related stories of grandkids’ visits. She was blessed with a wonderful sense of humor, and laughter was never far beneath her surface. Dorothy understood responsibility to her communities, and volunteered many hours at the museum, grange, and the two churches she attended.

The loss to the Ritzville and Benge is great. Her legacy is splendid. She was a worthy role model.

She had been hospitalized for a short while and her health had been in decline. I doubt that Dorothy would have adjusted to sedentary living, were she never to fully recover. Clearly, God did the merciful thing for His beloved Dorothy by not permitting that to happen to her.

When I first met her five summers ago, Dorothy was struggling with the recent loss of her dear husband, Harold. It’s comforting to think they are together again, hopefully birdying every hole (it surely can’t be Heaven without a golf course or two!).

We bid Dorothy a tearful farewell, only because we have no choice. We would never willingly part with her. Monday mornings on the golf course will never be quite so wonderful again. Her memory will accompany us, and we will hear the echo of her laughter and remember the whisper of her gentleness.

I will hear her say to me, “You hurry too much. Take your time when you swing that club.”

It was always good advice, and my game improved when I practiced it.

For a long while, I suspect that we will expect to see Dorothy puttering behind us in her blue golf cart whenever we play.

There will be a vacancy at our lunch table on Mondays, and too quiet moments when our conversation lags and there is nobody to fill it with colorful tales of rural Ritzville life.

We will often speak of our friend, and those loving memories will comfort us.