We saw each other through life’s journey. And now I will deeply miss my friend | Opinion

Often when someone stays in our thoughts, it is for a reason. And we shouldn’t put off trying to reach them.

This was the case with me a few weeks ago. My friend Delores was on my mind. We often called each other, but it had been more than a month since we last spoke. I was concerned. I called her daughter Karen. Sure enough, my friend had been in the hospital.

“Mommy has been under the weather,” Karen told me. “She was in the hospital but she’s home now.” Karen had the phone on speaker and Delores heard my voice and wanted to speak to me. We spoke briefly. I could tell she was not feeling well and I promised to come see her before the week was out.

That visit was not to be. Delores Collie Lockett, my friend of more than 73 years, died that same day — Feb. 21 — of heart failure. I was devastated.

Delores was the fifth of six siblings born to James G. and Elizabeth Moxey Collie, who had migrated from Acklins, and Ragged Island, Bahamas respectively, to Miami when they were in their teens.

Delores was born premature, but early on, she became known for her curious ways and her enthusiastic outlook on life. Petite in statue, Delores never let her size stop her from achieving what she wanted in life. Her parents instilled in her a love of reading and encouraged her to follow her dream of one day becoming a teacher.

The Collies brought their children up in the church in Overtown’s historic St. Agnes Episcopal Church. At the time of her death, Delores was a faithful member of the Church of the Incarnation Episcopal Church in Liberty City, serving under our classmate and friend, the late Rev. Canon J. Kenneth Major.

I met Delores in the summer of 1949, when we both had just been promoted to the sixth grade. She had come to visit her older, married sister Estelle, who lived next door to us in a duplex apartment that was across the railroad tracks from Liberty City Elementary School. My family had just moved back to Miami from Fort Worth, Texas, where we had lived for a year.

On that hot, humid summer day, Estelle called me next door to meet her baby sister. We were both shy, but happy to meet each other. We talked pre-teen stuff, and I think I showed her my grass doll.

(Back then my friends and I made grass dolls by pulling up thick weeds that had long roots. We stuffed the grass part down into a soda bottle, leaving the roots to hang outside the bottle. The roots were used for the doll’s hair. My friends and I spent countless hours washing the roots till they were pliable and then styling or curling the wet “hair” with a pencil.)

Fall and the opening of school seemed to come early that year, and Delores, who lived in Overtown, entered Dunbar Elementary, while I settled in at Liberty City Elementary. We would not meet again until we were in the seventh grade at Booker T. Washington Junior/Senior High School in Overtown. I had begged my mom to let me attend Booker T. (as we sometimes called the school), although Dorsey Junior Senior High School was within walking distance from where we lived.

I remember that first day in the seventh grade in Mrs. Helen Culmer’s homeroom. We were a bunch of giggling seventh-graders. Another classmate from Liberty City Elementary, Ivis Mickell (Richardson), had also joined me at Booker T. It felt so good to see familiar faces. A lot of friendships were formed on that first day at Booker T.,friendships that would last a lifetime.

Delores and I had that kind of friendship. We grew up and old together. We shared our teenage secrets and heartbreaks and had planned to go to college together. Later, I would introduce her to her first husband, the late James Sands. Their union produced three beautiful children.

I loved Delores’ family. Her parents were like surrogate parents to me. Because I was brought up by a single mom, I was especially fond of her dad, who was a role model for his own sons on how to be loving husbands and fathers. To know Mr. Collie, was to love him. And I often told Delores how blessed she was to have a dad like him. She would smile and say, “I know.”

Delores attended Knoxville College in Tennessee and later enrolled at the University of Miami, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in education. She began her teaching career as a kindergarten teacher at James E. Scott Community Center in the Liberty Square Housing Project. Later, she became a teacher in the Miami Dade County Public School System, where she taught for 31 years, ending her career at Arcola Lake Elementary School.

The years passed too swiftly. But we never lost contact with each other. We watched our children grow up and cheered each other on when life got in the way of living. When we didn’t see each other, we visited on the telephone, catching up by often talking for hours, bringing each other up to date about our children and, later our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

We comforted each other as our parents made their transition from earth to eternity. She grieved with me when my husband died. And I hurt for her when her marriage to James ended in divorce. Years later, I shared in her happiness when she found love again with Hubert Lockett, who preceded her in death.

In her later years, Delores lost her eyesight. It never stopped her. She was active in her church, and enjoyed traveling to the Bahamas, Canada, and Europe. She was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and always enjoyed attending the annual meetings around the country. She loved her family and the Booker T. Washington High School Alumni Association and was a faithful member.

She is preceded in death by her siblings Estelle Collie Scavella, James Collie and Albertha Collie Palacious.

In addition to her children, Martin Sands, Stuart Sands, and Karen Sands Wilkinson and adopted son Nigel Brown, Delores is survived by brother Kelsey Collie of Washington D. C., and Sister Constance Collie Blackman, 11 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, and many other relatives and friends.

Funeral services were held Saturday (March 4) at her beloved Church of the incarnation at 1835 NW 54th St. in Liberty City.

Reach Bea Hines at bea.hines@gmail.com

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