Remembering Ed Smiley

I have been much remiss in not posting here on the blog that we lost one of our most enthusiastic Wakers back in August. Although I started this blog, Ed has been an enthusiastic poster since very close to that time, and in recent years, his posts outnumbered mine considerably. I realized that Dia de los Muertos might be a good time to make up for not having written something earlier, but then realized that Halloween itself might be an even better day, since, as his Facebook post shows, he was nothing if not enthusiastic about Halloween. 

Although all of the Wake group has lived in Santa Cruz, California 'and environs' for many years, the rest of us did not know Ed when he joined our group, although I'm sure all of us were a mere degree or two of separation from him. But I actually came into contact with Ed on Goodreads. I must have been scrolling through the names of people who had commented on the book and realized that Ed lived right in the same town as I do. As we met in a pub, not someone's home, I felt fine about mentioning that there was a Wake group right in his own town. I think he probably made it to the very next meeting. 

Ed had already read the Wake twice by the time he joined us, and at first I think he felt somewhat impatient with our leisurely crawl through the book. But unlike others who came and went after a few sessions, he had tenacity, and above all, such a devotion to Joyce and the book that he was willing to take us as he found us. Ed had a great memory and a wide field of interest and was always eager to share that with us. Sometimes we were not as eager to be taught as he was to teach, but in retrospect, what he was really sharing with us was his enthusiasm. 

He told us once that in a dream, he had been able to read the book that came after the Wake, which Joyce had promised would be much simpler to understand. Joyce died before he could write that book, but I think Ed believed he had actually seen it, and for my part, I wouldn't be at all surprised. 

It was a peculiar aspect of the Wake group that we didn't learn that much about each other's lives outside the group if we didn't already know it. We never saw Ed's house until he threw a party for our actually finishing the book, and I'm pleased to recall that he dressed the house up in Wakean motifs and himself up as Joyce, if I recall right. It was a nice evening, and in retrospect, we all found it rather touching. 

But we did come to learn fairly soon that Ed was an artist and a very good one, as well as a tech guy who made his living in that industry. His paintings were described by him as 'colorful abstracts.' He had frequent shows, particularly at the First Fridays Santa Cruz hosts monthly and the ones I went to seemed well attended. 

In addition to surviving a very serious car accident during the time we knew him (he escaped without major injuries, I think, but his copy of the Wake did not), Ed contracted lung cancer and had to wait for a lung transplant in the last year or so that we knew him, in our second time around with the Wake. His spirit was the same, but he had an oxygen machine and trouble breathing and so his presence with us was a little different. In some ways that helped him meld into the group better. He was very faithful about attending even up to the time when the pandemic shut us (and the Poet and the Patriot) down. I know he was very happy to be part of our group enterprise and we were happy to have him. 

Ed did get his lung transplant but it was right around the time the lockdown started and though we had a few emails back and forth, we weren't really in the loop. His daughter wrote on his Facebook page that he had had a few bad patches since the transplant, but things had been looking up again, and he was expecting to return to painting when he simply passed away. 

It took us awhile but we did hold a Zoom wake for Ed and it felt very appropriate to just be our small group remembering him as he was to us. We also felt an urge to resume (rezoom? I can't resist adding) but that has yet to be revived. Maybe after the election we'll all have a little more mental space for it.

Happy Halloween, Ed. We miss you. Say hi to Joyce for me.