- In Memory I Can Still See Reynolds
In memory I can still see Reynolds—at home, in his wheelchair, with bright eyes and genial smile as he tells us about the blue heron that brings him "the purest pleasure" when it shows up again, year after year, to visit him. Though a profoundly sophisticated, cultured, and well-travelled man, Reynolds was truly a writer of region, always deriving the "purest pleasure" from his own beloved land and state of North Carolina with its tobacco fields and little piedmont towns, and from its citizens whom he viewed with compassion, empathy, and good humor, much like his good friend Eudora Welty. Reynolds's humor was insightful and understanding, not ironic or hurtful. His regional characters and stories were universal in their meaning and appeal.
And of course he relished a good southern grotesque anecdote more than anybody. I will never forget the evening I showed up for dinner waving a clipping from the day's News and Observer, an account of a deliciously macabre family murder in a small town south of Raleigh.
"I'm going to write about it!" I announced.
"No, I'm going to write about it!" Reynolds was waving the same clipping. "But wait, tell you what, I'll flip you for it. Heads, it's me. Tails, it's you. And if you haven't got a first draft in a year, I get it back."
"Done!" I got to work.
Reynolds did not lose his humor even in the face of his terrible pain and setbacks over the years—in fact, he seemed to grow in grace and compassion for others, especially others struggling with challenges of their own. He was always so kind to my schizophrenic son Joshua Seay, for instance. Knowing that Josh, a musician, idolized James Taylor, Reynolds called him up out of the blue one day and asked him if he'd like to come backstage at Walnut Creek to a James Taylor concert. Of course Josh went and had the great pleasure of being there to hear James and Reynolds sing their song "Copperline" together. Josh never forgot it.
And we will never forget Reynolds, all of us touched not only by his work but by the goodness of his heart. [End Page 5]