The email arrived in Terry's box on the morning of Tuesday, November 16th. It was from one of her best friends, Cynthia Fleetwood, and the subject line said it all, "He's gone." Her husband, Allison "Al" Fleetwood, Sr. had passed away the night before in a hospice care facility near their home in Cruso, North Carolina. Al succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 80. The AJC obituary described his battle as one fought "with courage and grace." While I did not see Al during that battle, I have no doubt that we was characteristically courageous and graceful in his final days, even while enduring one of the most painful kinds of cancer.
As I write the rest of this, it's now Monday the 22nd, and much has taken place since hearing of Al's passing. Al's family had a memorial service for him in Atlanta yesterday--it was well attended and included some touching moments made by friends and family. Terry went up to NC to pick up Cynthia, so she could attend. Cynthia stayed with us for two nights and along with the memorial service, I heard so many great stories about Al. Those stories confirmed many of my own perceptions of Al as a professional, father, grandfather, husband, friend, and lover of life.
I had only a handful of opportunities to get to know Al, but I cherished every one of them. In a word, I admired him and hoped that I would someday come to be just a little like him. He was a true iconoclast--one by choice, not by alienation from the movers and shakers. By that I mean, Al lived among the establishment much of his adult life, but was never a part of the establishment. Al was an architect, with a degree from Georgia Tech--a traditional southern university. He was a fighter pilot in the US Marine Corps, one of the most traditional institutions in our country. He was associated with several major architectural firms in the boom period of Atlanta's growth--including John Portman and Associates, who had a hand in building much of downtown Atlanta's skyline. He was considered so good that many of those firms sent him to far away places to get troubled projects completed on time and within budget.
So, on paper, Al looked liked any other skilled and accomplished professional in the world of big business, but he always knew that he was not of that world. He wanted more out of his life, so he read broadly and deeply, loved the banter of friendly contested conversation, would pursue things that he just simply wanted to learn about, and he enjoyed the arts and music.
Once he retired from the world of Big Architecture, he chose to live a simple and frugal life with Cynthia in the mountains of North Carolina--nearly as far off the "social grid" as people can be in this day and age. He and Cynthia were extremely happy living as caretakers of a small, isolated cottage surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest--where I first met him.
I found out quickly that Al was not just another very intelligent person--in his world and mine people with that quality are plentiful. But Al had the one thing that is extremely rare these days--he had used his native intelligence and worldly experiences to achieve wisdom, which is what I came to admire most about him. Al "got it" as much as any other person I've met in my life--and then shared and taught what he knew to his family and friends in his straight-forward but compassionate manner. After all, he was a Southern Gentleman at heart!
As I think he would be proud to know, Al taught me a lot--even in those few times I had to be around him. From what I've learned since the time of his passing, I am just one person among many in Al's life who can say that.
mike
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