Ellington

I've thought often of Lydy Caldwell since she was so horribly murdered in October. But I thought of her often when she was alive, too.

Lydy and I stood in lines together. Waiting at Lemuria to get a book signed. Waiting to get into the overrun ladies room at Thalia Mara Hall during intermissions. And waiting to fill our glasses or our plates at parties. Lydy was fun to stand in line with, and before I went to a play, a ballet, an opera, a concert or a book signing, more often than not I'd think, "I hope Lydy will be there."

She was a glowing sort of person, an ageless beauty with the perfect trilogy of traits: brains, generosity and a soulful heart.

I met her on a mission of mercy. I was trying to help a lost child, a tiny, shy teenage girl from the Methodist Children's Home, with violent abuse in her past and a stubborn desire to "be better." She was struggling with an essay on "Mississippi Women Writers." Everyone else was doing Eudora Welty, and I thought it would be nice to pick someone less known to the ninth-graders of Murrah High School. So Lydy agreed to talk to us about her daughter, playwright Beth Henley.

When we walked through the doorway of Lydy's gracious home in Woodland Hills, the girl's eyes grew wide, and she crept closer to me. Lydy had laid out high tea in her living room, and sunlight sparkled on the silver and crystal, sprigs of mint danced in the iced tea, and the wood floors shone. This child, who was used to back doors and cracked linoleum, metal bedsteads and tiny rooms groaning with people, was welcomed into Lydy's home like a princess.

The girl didn't say much while Lydy talked about Beth and her other daughters, about her husband and her life, the plays she had been in, the plays she hoped to be in. I didn't see the girl take a single note. She ate a lot of cake and drank a lot of tea, and Lydy talked, and I listened. But when the girl's paper was graded, she got an A, and after that, she stayed on the honor roll for her entire high school career, and was an A-team cheerleader, the first ever from the Methodist Home. I know I shouldn't give Lydy all the credit. A lot of people were trying to help this little girl. But the transformation took place at Lydy's, like a spark striking dry tinder.

That was Lydy. A spark.

— Ruth Williams