Judy Reid, We Will Miss Your Smile
On July 3, 2009 the Detroit literary community lost our dear friend Judy Reid. Everyone who knew Judy knows two things about her: that smile, and how one never saw Judy without William. I had the honor of attending Judy’s memorial at the James Cole Funeral Home on Grand Blvd next door to the Motown Museum in Detroit. I walked over to the spontaneous Michael Jackson memorial where fans left behind their precious possessions: stuffed animals, toy trucks, blankets, etc. The love I felt inside that funeral home a few minutes later, most certainly for Judy, but not just for Judy, love for one another, was a gesture – a gift to Judy for being an inspiration and joy. As Pastor Harriet said of her cousin, “Judy left her light on all of us, hallelujah!” Later that evening, per Judy’s request, I attended a memorial poetry open mic/picnic/testimony in the back yard of her and William’s Southfield home. Under a large white tent, a blanket of clouds, a bit of jazz, friends, neighbors, family, her stunning sons, Bill and Jay (who share Judy’s contagious smile) read poems, told stories, and shared anecdotes about Judy.

What some may not have known about Judy is that she had a Masters Degree in Education and taught for decades in Detroit. Judy was a visual artist, a craftsperson, a painter and photographer. When she retired from teaching, poetry became her passion. Judy’s focus was outward, it seems that everything she did was in order to make a difference in people’s lives. I saw Judy in June at The Bear River Writers’ Conference. We hugged hello, I asked her, “How ya doing?” She said something about having “cocktails with chemo” and Bill was happy to be “drivin’ Miss Daisy.” Judy was all about a surety of life’s rewards. Her poetry reflects this philosophy. As Judy wrote in her poem inanimate object speaks, published in the 2007, Bear River Review

if you were/the because word/you would be the envy/
of other words/because you are/in constant demand/
because the purpose/of what I do/is to analyze/
summarize/the natural inference/of a result/because I am/
the answer key/to that powerful/question word/why?

We will miss that smiling face at conferences and poetry events. I will miss her optimism. The morning of her memorial service I wrote this little ditty and read it at her open-mic.

Always Late
“I am a giving/revealing word”
Judy Reid

I knew they’d eventually show up.
She, in endless beginnings.
He, in Brewster wisdom.
I looked for them.
Music in her words.
Music in his. They,
the harmony of each other’s
chords – the up beat
to the down. They,
lowered ninth, raised
eleventh – no fifth,
augmented, bebop, boogie and blues,
I looked for them.
I looked for them
the way one looks for stones
in pools of glassy water.
I looked for them
in Jack’s class, and Laura’s, and
Bob’s, and Allison’s, and Jim’s..
I looked for them.
I looked for them
that day we lost Jaime,
that time we danced at Walloon,
and on the city streets at Lit Fest.
I looked for them.
Following a circle of fifths,
improvised, broken time,
they were the cadence of together,
together, together,
she, in her hats,
he, in his history.
Cross rhythm, diminished scale,
it’s complicated, but made so simple
by sweet, sweet music.
Late, for sure.
But never better.
He the handle of a red wagon
she the hand that held it.
Joy Gaines-Friedler