Contact: Facebook.

Annual History of James Andris and Stephen Nichols in 2023

This is a letter that I hoped I would never have to write. I must tell you that Stephen Lynn Nichols died in the early morning hours of February 7, 2023. He had gone to the hospital on the morning of New Year's Eve with his ninth stroke. He spent a week in crisis there, but the doctors decided to send him for stroke rehabilitation, and I chose the program at Manor Grove near where we were living. But after another two weeks of rehab, Stephen was loosing rather than gaining strength, and so we transferred over to nursing care at Manor Grove. A few days later we started a hospice program. Stephen's daughter, Stephanie flew to St. Louis then, and Stephen was able to say goodbye to her.

Stephen singing with his choir buddy, Jane Edwards in 2018

We waited until May 6 to hold Stephen's funeral mass at Trinity Episcopal Church, our spiritual community since 1986. Stephen's obituary is online at St. Louis Cremation. He had planned out his service to the last detail. Our former priest, Rev. Anne Kelsey was celebrant, and Archdeacon Harry Leip gave the sermon. Over 100 attended, old friends from our past social life in St. Louis, former neighbors, bridge and theatre clubs, and several from the LGBTQ community, as well as quite a few from our final residence at Bethesda Gardens. Deacon Harry told me Stephen's ashes were buried right by the choir window, and Stephen dearly loved the Trinity Episcopal Choir.

I won't say much about my grieving, except that I've never felt such loss. I had the support of good friends and family, and so over the past year I have healed enough that I'm moving forward with the usual day-to-day activities of my life. Settling all of Stephen's accounts kept me busy for quite a while, and then I indexed his very large stamp collection and estimated its value. I returned to quite a few of our old haunts in St. Louis and did quite a bit of remembering—there was so much good to remember.

To see selected photos of Stephen from his life, click on the link. Give it a few seconds to load. To get back to the newsletter, hit the back button in your browser.

I was able to take a couple of important trips later in the year. In August, I spent a couple of weeks in Massachusetts and Maine visiting with Stephanie, Sasha, and Dawn. It was a great time to renew our family. I had never seen their new house. Sasha is now a senior at St. Andrews School in Delaware and has just turned 18. Dawn is in her second year as director of the Mindfulness Center located at Harvard. Stephanie is a lead teacher at Inly School. What really rocked is that Dawn and Stephanie had rented for a week a vacation home on the St. George River not far from the ocean. We chilled, did jigsaw puzzles, played fun board games like Scrabble, Parchesi, and Catan, and feasted at home and at Maine restaurants. And of course we enjoyed the beach and the ocean.

To see a slideshow of my time in Massachusetts and Maine, click on the link. To get back to the newsletter, hit the back button in your browser.

I had an equally wonderful visit to Ohio to renew my connection with the families of my sister and brother. My sister, Vicki, arranged several reunions for me, and she and Jerry hosted my visit also. They have three sons, Jeff, Joe and TJ. I spent a delightful day at TJ and Kelly's where they and their three children gathered around the piano and sang some of my old environmental songs after dinner. I spent another day at Jeff and Gi's newly-built country home, which is situated right in the middle of the area that was settled in the 1800's by our German-American ancestors. We visited the graves of several of these great great grandparents. I also visited with my brother's daughter, Heidi, and her new husband, Rob in their country home, even more deeply buried in southeastern Ohio's farmland. And though my brother, Tom, was briefly in the hospital, I got to see him, his wife, Diana, and his one granddaughter, Arianna. Vicki also had selected a large stack of old family photos for me to look at and take if I wanted. I've included a couple of those photos in the slideshow.

To see a slideshow of my time in Ohio, click on the link. To get back to the newsletter, hit the back button in your browser.

Currently, I have been able to engage myself again in some community ativities: at Trinity Episcopal Church, at Bethesda Gardens, which has a full entertainment program, and in the St. Louis ragtime and LBGTQ communities. I'm also studying Spanish and getting back into a more consistent presence in cyberspace. Even though I am dealing with a couple of chronic conditions, I'm stll driving and can walk up to a mile.

It is the season of Advent, which is practiced by my church during the month of December. This is a season of hope. As we remember the approaching anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ, we also hope for the return of the Christ spirit in our own hearts and in this world of darkness and shadows so sorely in need of light and love.

I bid you all a happy holiday season, whatever religion or lack thereof you profess.