I was praying I wasn’t too late as I ran through the wards that were still so familiar to me having changed little since my days of volunteering at the hospital radio service there all those years ago. I spotted a nurse in front of me and called out, “Mary Sheppard? Do you know where Mary Sheppard is?”
Before she could answer a little voice that I’d known all my life said the most welcome words I’d ever heard, “I’m over here, my love.”
My mother, my dear, lovely, cherished Mum, was sitting up in her bed sipping a cup of tea.
She smiled and asked, “Would you like a cup? I can have one sent up. And do sit down, you look quite exhausted.”
Mum never respected the oddsmakers. They had said she would be dead in less that twenty-four hours but this strong little lady who’d worked on city transportation during the height of the blitz of WW II to “do her bit” in the war effort wasn’t going to go easily. But a great attitude and inherent toughness isn’t enough to fight the ravages of time. The doctor told me quite emphatically that she would not be leaving the hospital and the end was coming sooner rather than later.
I spent every minute with Mum for the next week. They moved her to a private room and brought in a chair for me and then, after two days, when they saw I wasn’t leaving, a rollaway bed.
My last day arrived. I had to go back to L.A. I awoke early so I could make it to London in time to get the 11am non-stop to Los Angeles. I reached forward to Mum and said my goodbyes and told her how much she had meant to me and to Dad. I hugged her frail body gently and as I pulled away she smiled.
“How I ever gave birth to such a great big thing as you I’ll never know.”
We both laughed, and I gave mum a little wave goodbye.
“Be careful, my son. And remember, I’ll always love you.”
Tears poured from my eyes as I gunned the car out onto the Newton Road, heading north to Heathrow. I knew I would never see Mum again.
The sun was rising as I sped over the bridge that spanned the River Teign. A low, early-morning mist hung over the estuary as small fishing boats appeared through the fog and headed out into the channel in hopes of returning with full nets as they had done for centuries.
I had grown up with this river, this countryside, and I was as familiar with it as I was with the back of my hand. It had always been like this, unchanged and untouched by time. But it would never be the same for me again because I had always known it with my mother alive, an unseen but very present part of it. The next time I would cross this bridge she would be gone and to me that loss would mean more than if all those little wooden trawlers ceased to exist and the very river itself dried up.
I slammed on my brakes and swerved over to the hard shoulder. I smashed the steering wheel with my fist over and over again in frustration. I was running away and leaving my mother to die alone. What part of being brave is that? How could I possibly leave when the person who gave me life, who filled me with love, needed me most?
I spun the wheel and crossed the grass center divider. The sign ahead said “Torquay 8km.” I would be back there in ten minutes.
Mum looked up as I walked into her room. I could see on her face that she was happy but not surprised.
“I couldn’t leave you, Mum. I’m going to stay with you here.”
She took my hand and squeezed it gently. “I’m so glad, my love.”
Those five words made everything worthwhile. Come what may I would be with my mum until the end.
A week later Krista and Dyle flew over. Mum was starting to go rapidly downhill and it was showing on her face. She perked up when she saw two of her favorite people join me in her hospital room.
“You came all the way from America just to see me? How nice,” she said.
The three of us celebrated Mum’s birthday in that hospital room. Dyle bought a cake and candles and we sang happy birthday to her. After mum blew out the candles she joked, “There were only four on it. I suppose the hospital wouldn’t let you put the right number on because it would be a fire risk.”
Mum turned eighty-five that day, June 26, 2002. Three days later Dyle had to fly home and return to work. Krista stayed with me to be by my side, the true, loving, loyal wife.
On July 7 mum started to experience terrible discomfort as her lungs began to fill with fluid. The doctor put her on a morphine drip that knocked her out.
“She’ll be like that now until the end. It’ll be coming soon.” he said.
But still she held on. The greatest generation doesn’t go down easily.
On July 9 a dear friend of Mum’s, Theresa, who was now living in Chicago, phoned to check on her condition. I told her she was in an induced coma and it would be any time now. Theresa was understandably upset and said to please tell her that she loved her.
I returned to the room, sat on the bed and spoke to my mother, “That was Theresa from Chicago. She just called to say she loves you.”
I felt something. My mother had reached out and was squeezing my hand. Then she started to sing,
I heard her sweet little voice repeat the words I had just said to her but with a slight change. Mum was singing “I just called to say I love you.”
I looked at Krista in shock. We had been told that the sedation would make her totally unresponsive and that she would never regain consciousness again, but here she was, holding my hand and singing to me just as she had done all her life, and somehow she remembered every word even in her comatose state.
As she sang “I just called to say how much I care” Krista and I joined in and sang the song with her. It was a magical, unforgettable moment.
We were still singing when the doctor walked into the room. He stood there and watched as the three of us sang the Stevie Wonder classic and the dying mother held her son’s hand.
After a minute or so Mum stopped singing and the room fell silent again. The doctor took Krista and me outside to speak to us.
“If I hadn’t seen that with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said incredulously. “She has eight times the normal amount of morphine in her to keep her sedated. You could put down two elephants with that much opiate, and yet your mother was singing? That’s a first for me.”
We went back inside and I lay on the bed with Mum and carefully slid my arm under her neck and around her shoulders to cradle her gently. Krista sat in the corner reading.
Mum and I lay like that for about two hours. I could feel her every breath as I held her. She seemed relaxed, comfortable, at peace.
At two minutes before one in the afternoon of July 9, 2002 she took her final breath and died in my arms. If it had to happen then this was the way we both would have wanted it. She had held me in her arms when she brought me into the world and I was the one holding her when she left it.
That night Krista and I were finally able to take a break from the hospital and decided to grab some much needed food at the pub that had been my haunt as a teenager, The Devon Dumpling. It was just a short distance from Torbay Hospital and as we walked there we passed Kitson Park, the site of so many of my early memories. I started to cry uncontrollably.
I’d had more than a month to prepare for the inevitability of losing Mum and thought I had already run the gamut of emotions. I honestly believed that when that final moment came, as it had just hours before, I would be able to stand resilient and strong, the tears having been shed weeks before, the loss already mentally dealt with. Instead I was hit with a wave of sorrow that wracked my body as an awful feeling of helplessness swept over me. It was there and then, outside that little park that had inspired me to conjure up so many dreams for the future, that the era of my parents and with it, my childhood, finally ended.
Krista reached out, hoping to console me, “I can’t believe she’s gone. She was such a…” She struggled for the correct word, “…force.”
I thought about what had just happened, of everything I’d seen over the last fifty years, losing Dad, losing Lonnie and now losing Mum. It re
inforced the perspective on life my father had given me and it made me realize something very important; that of everything I had done in my life up until now, the radio, TV, movies, clubs, concerts, writing, travels, the one thing I was most proud of was not leaving my mother to die alone.
The fact that I had dropped everything and stayed with Mum during her final weeks meant more to me than anything that had come before.
My presence might have been comforting for my mother, but in the end it was me who received the most from it. To know that I had been there with her in those last moments, that I had been able to ease her fears and then experience the passing of the most important person in my life while I held her in my arms meant more than the world to me. It was with those thoughts pulsing through my mind and body that I spoke to Krista.
“Life’s short, honey,” I sighed. “We have to live it while we can.”
Krista nodded in agreement.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy saying this, but I think we have to go back,” I said.
“Back? Back where?” asked Krista.
“Your dad is in LA. And the rest of your family - Uncle David and Kathy, the girls, Joey, your grandparents. You should be with them while you can. There is no tomorrow, only now.”
“But what about St. Maarten? What about your dream?”
“We’ve done it, we’ve lived the dream and it was great and I’ll cherish it forever. But it won’t bring Mum back and it won’t buy us any more time with the people we love.”
Krista, the most understanding person in the world, grasped what I was trying to say and instead of shooting me down, thought before she spoke, “But we sold everything. You left everything. What would we do if we went back?”
It was my turn to think. Just what would we do? We’d been gone nearly two and a half years. I was probably just a memory now. All my jobs were far behind me. The TV shows were off the air, the radio station had shuffled their line up and was continuing on without me. We’d be going back to nothing. And then I realized how freeing that was, to start again from scratch.
Was I crazy? Could I do it again? I’d gotten a place at Oxford against the odds, I’d found work in Europe when they said it would never happen and I’d done everything I had set out to do in America and more. And now I’d fulfilled that ten-year-old’s dream of living like Jacques Cousteau. Maybe it was time to add to that list, to push the boundaries once more and find out where life would lead us.
That night Krista and I decided we would take that chance and embrace the thrill of discovery and the hidden vistas that wait around the next bend. We knew that together we could face anything that was in store for us. We might have no home to return to, no job waiting for us, but for some wild, insane reason that made it all the more exciting. Life is too short not to be lived as an adventure, and we understood that we would have to work hard and bust our butts to try to succeed but wherever that took us or whatever confronted us, we promised ourselves that we would face it head on.
Was I nervous and a little scared? You bet I was, but it’s those moments when you don’t take the easy path but instead challenge yourself that you become the most alive and attuned to the world around you. Who knows what opportunities might exist if you only dare look for them? But the one thing I was certain of is that given the chance I would once again do my best to bring the show.
TO BE CONTINUED
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost I have to thank my mother and father. It’s because of them that I grew up to love people and music. I’ve had many blessings in my life but my parents will always rank number one. To my beloved Krista who put up with me for almost a year as I wrote this book. She encouraged me to put the words on paper (or at least on a hard drive!) despite the fact that quite a few areas of my life were X-rated. And to my furry family who slept at my feet as I tapped out the manuscript on the keyboard.
I wrote the book from my perspective which is why the title, World In My Eyes, seemed the perfect fit. I was fortunate to have always taken photos since a young age so that enabled me to piece together the timeline and gave me a lot to draw from and remind me of some of those amazing moments. Other people’s memories and opinions might vary from mine but this book is my personal recollection of the events that I was a part of and the people who were important to me. I tried to stay ‘in the moment’ throughout the book and how everything felt to me as the memories came flooding back. There were many times when I cried and had to walk away from the text on the screen as it became very real to me once again.
Thank you to those who assisted me in recalling those memories and feelings, the good and the bad, that otherwise might have been missed. At the top of that list has to be Peter Facer, who was there by my side for so many of those incredible times and whose notes and photos – several of which are in the book – aided in fleshing out the details. To all the original KROQ crew – I was honored to work with you especially Raymond Bannister, Ramondo, who helped make that little station in Pasadena a monster, Mike Evans whose humor motivated me, Jed the Fish for filling in some of the blanks, Dusty Street for showing me the ropes, Swedish Egil, an early and longtime buddy, April Whitney, and Mike Jacobs who knew Rick and KROQ better than all of us. To Steve Dagger for his memories of Band Aid, our Australian adventures and continuing friendship. Tor Tendon, Rod Wilkins and Zed Bailey who went over our years together in Europe, Neil Tennant for his kind words and reminiscence of the Pet Shop Boys’ early days in LA and Martin Gore for his remembrances on my time with Depeche Mode and for letting me use his brilliant song as the title of this book.
I also want to thank all the photographers whose pictures appear in this book. Being a fanboy at heart, I took the majority, but many come from others including Peter Facer, Steven Wayne for the back cover picture, Joel Gelfand the official photographer of KROQ, Lisa Johnson and Bob Sebree. You were there for some pivotal times in music history and your work and talent speaks volumes. If I missed anyone’s name I’m sorry, but you do have my gratitude.
Thanks also go out to my late brother, Stephen Sheppard. I wish you could have read this, brother mine. Also the trio behind KROQ, Rick Carroll, Larry Groves and Scott Mason – all sadly missed, Dr. Drew, Jimmy Kimmel, Kevin and Bean, Rodney Bingenheimer, Kevin Weatherly, Lisa Worden, Gene Sandbloom, Rockin’ Fig, Rhonda Kramer, Elvira, Michelle Gonzalez who was indispensable, Freddy Snakeskin for your dry wit and the phone call that helped change my life, Andy Schuon, Alan Lawrie, Peter Brown, Baba Bailey, my wonderful cousin, Christine Long, The Northcott family – the best neighbours ever, Bobby and Whitney Keough, Mark Rowlands and Tim Mahoney – the talented duo behind Towards 2000, Dave Lawrence, Mark Driscoll, Larry and Barbara Joachim, Eric Gold, Brian Clifford – R.I.P., Mike Frost, John Bennett – who taught me how to ride a bike, Ray DeVries for all the music you brought me, Jon Latta, we miss you every day, Doug ‘Sluggo’ Roberts, Howie Klein, Jonathan ‘Baron’ Kessler, Tony Demitriades, JT & SLB, the Kemp Brothers and Spandau Ballet, all the incredible bands, artists, actors and personalities I had the privilege to work with over the years, and to Howard Stern. Howard might not be in this book but his personality and unique ability on the air inspired me to be as truthful as I could and to put it all out there for the world to read. Thanks Howard, listening to you inspires me every day to be better.
To all my listeners, friends and ‘fans’ (not too comfortable using that word) over the years. Your love and support allowed me to pursue my dreams and avoid getting a real job! And during the last decade it was your repeated entreaties to put my stories down on paper that resulted in this book. Thank you for that, especially everyone in Southern California. Growing up here in the nineteen eighties was a very special experience that few outside of SoCal could ever understand. What a time we all had!
And to all those amazing girls and women that I was fortunate to have known. I reached out to many of them as I wrote the book and asked if they wanted me to change their names. I was shocked when the
y all said it was OK to go ahead and use their real names. I think of them fondly as I remember our times together. Katy Manor, an amazing girl, dear friend and what a talent you are on air. Karen Scott, you were a good wife and a great actress, I wish you nothing but love and happiness. Darcy, whenever I hear ‘California Girls’ I think of you. Taxi, I’m so happy that your life has worked out so well. Your story is one of the few instances in the book where I leave the moment and come up to date to tell the reader where you are today. I felt that you deserved that, you’re a very special person.
Finally I have to thank three people. When my publisher first asked me what I wanted to call the book I jokingly said, “Four Deaths, Three Loves, Two Weddings, One Life.” The fact that I was lucky enough to have truly loved three such exceptional women in one lifetime blows my mind. Whether I meant as much to them as they did to me I don’t know, but they are each irreplaceable milestones in my life.
Thank you Carolyn Wilson for showing me how to love and for being with me all those years at college. My parents loved you too. If you are reading this please reconnect.
Thank you Terri Nunn for the fire you ignited in my heart. Watching you grow as an artist staggered me and filled me with pride. I will never forgive myself for how it ended.
Thank you Krista Sheppard for not just being my wife, but for being my best friend, my confidante, my lover and the person who I can’t wait to come home to. You understand my dreams and encourage me to chase them and you are fearless about the future. Whether you’re wearing heels or kicking back in ‘comfies’ I can’t believe how lucky I am to have you by my side.
And that does it. For everyone I’ve forgotten to include, I do apologize but I have to go. Krista has just made me a hot cup of Yorkshire tea and after that’s finished the doggies need their walkies. Thanks for joining me on this trip through my stories of old, sharing it with you means more to me than you could ever know.
World in My Eyes: The Autobiography Page 50