Robert DuSold

I’m not much for the sosh media tributes. I guess in some ways I find them not about the person who’s gone but more about a scramble to find a picture somehow, somewhere that proves you knew them… especially if they’re a degree of known.

However, I’m all onboard with whatever anyone wants to do to express themselves. But it’s in my 🧬 to question stuff like that sometimes. I’m a weird griever maybe…

As I write this, I want so badly to not write this, and I don’t think I have any pictures of us anyway…

This is my place .. my blog..where I have nothing to prove, but something to say. Just me and you.

Sorta.

And I want to say what I can about a dear friend who died on Easter Sunday… I don’t know what happened. I guess something with her heart?

I want to know her cats are ok… she loved them so.

I’d feel a lot better if I knew that they will be ok even if Hollis didn’t answer my text yesterday asking if she was ok.

I didn’t answer her last text to me a couple of weeks ago and I feel terrible about that.

My first introduction to Hollis in the late 80’s was seeing this chick in a leather jacket smoking a 🚬 who was about to play Fantine in “Les Mis”. I had heard of her before that, but I was like “… who the fuck is that”?! in a combo judgey and awestruck way. Most of us were sorta full of ourselves back then.

Anyway, yes we worked together and she was so very talented yada yada.

But, the part I’ll remember about Holly Dolly.. as she called herself when we chatted on the phone… was just who she was as a person.

I can’t believe I’m writing this because it’s not real yet.

Hollis made it her mission in the last couple of years during the pandemic to connect with people she knew from the many shows she did and just simply check in and chat and say hi.

And baby, there were lots of people to check in with… and she did.

We talked about politics and religion and theater of course. She was concerned about the world.. and I’d send her my blogs. She really liked them. We talked about the Catholic Church and the comfort it brought her.. but she was never all transfiguration about it.. it wasn’t dogma as much as something that gave her a degree of peace.

If you met the girl in the leather jacket you maybe wouldn’t have believed it, but I did. She was sincere. I very much hope that helped her get to heaven.

I think theater didn’t interest Hollis(and me) as much in it’s current state. I think she was more meh about it. She did everything she wanted to really, and had a nice pension and was comfortable.

This fucking pandemic is so hard to navigate, and I think we’re all much more lonely.. and I think Hollis was lonely too.

But I think she was digging into herself instead of a role.. which is a much harder thing to do as you get older and marginalized for a number of reasons.

I think she found that rewarding… I keep thinking to myself did she know she was gonna die and that’s why she connected so deeply with me, and others, at the end of her life?

I think her need for connection wasn’t a product of loneliness as much as generosity.

Now that she’s gone and I will miss our chats and texts more than I can say right now.

She’s gone.

Her last text to me I will treasure .. something about Sarah Palin coming back. She had to get that off her chest. She couldn’t fucking abide that.

I feel like it was much more fun for us to get to know each other as people, without the sets and costumes and lights.

Hollis was just starting to get to know herself I think… her greatest role really. She deserves more time. I want to take her cue as it were to get to know myself better too while I can.

And be more generous.

Ok, I found a picture of Hollis… she’s in there somewhere….