My Cousin Died Yesterday
Yesterday morning Lee woke up at his family’s home in Leland, NC feeling unwell. His sons Joshua(14) and Brayden(11) were at school. Lee texted his wife Andrea saying he felt like he was having a heart attack. When she heard from him again later he was driving himself to the hospital. He didn’t make it. His truck hit a construction sign then two trees. Lee died at the scene aged 45 years and is no doubt resting well knowing nobody else was injured.
Lee grew up in Wilmington, Raleigh and eventually graduated high school in Bladen County where his parents, my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Lee Sr. still reside in Elizabethtown.
Lee was never not the coolest guy in the room. If he was doing something lame, he made it cool. As a child, I, too wanted to be a diabetic so I could make neat noises and do Donald Duck impressions every time I injected insulin or checked my blood sugar so I could be more like Lee. That was just the beginning.
Growing up my late grandparents rented the tiniest house in Nags Head for 18 aunts, uncles and cousins to cram into each summer. They were the greatest weeks of my young life. He was the best boogie board rider in the state as far as I was concerned and made flying a kite on the Outerbanks look as easy as walking down a flight of stairs.
The family always got together for holidays at my grandparents’ home in Hog Hill(an actual community in Catawba County lol.) Lee and I would hop in his GMC Jimmy(the same one we 4 wheeled in at the OBX,) drive to Fred T. Foard High School and kick field goals until our shins were so tight we couldn’t move our right feet. Sure enough, because he was so cool, he was playing around kicking field goals during P.E. at East Bladen High School one morning and was the football team’s kicker the next Friday night after the coach noticed he was really good.
Lee graduated from UNC-Wilmington and briefly worked at a local television station(WWAY I think.) He tended bar at the legendary Paddy’s Hollow downtown. He met Andrea who added some much needed “not Southern” to our family and they moved to Atlanta where Lee worked for CNN and they had their first child Joshua. Eventually they moved back to Wilmington where Lee and a couple of friends bought a bar. See? Lee was always cool.
His group turned The Liquid Room in downtown Wilmington into a landmark for locals and summer visitors. Lee was “The Singing Bartender.” He would make a cocktail, walk to the end of the bar where a hot mic on a boom stand always lived, pot down the booty music and sing a Green Day or Extreme song. That was popular and all but Lee’s biggest impact professionally was on the people that worked for him. He treated everyone with generous dignity and they returned the favor with tremendous loyalty and respect.
Lee spent so many late nights bartending only to get up after three hours of sleep to burn up the coastal highways of the Carolinas to watch his boys play baseball. He loved it. Then he’d leave to head back for another night of singling and slinging behind the bar.
After losing a couple of friends to drugs Lee helped co-found Heart of Wilmington to help battle opioid addiction he saw taking over his town. We didn’t know it but Lee was battling some demons of his own that few or possibly nobody knew about.
In March of 2019 Lee drove to the mountains of Georgia for 30 days and was drink free until the end. He’d spend his last months trying to make himself into a better man because he knew being the coolest wasn’t enough for Andrea or the boys.
Lee was so genuine and positive. He treated everyone the same regardless of race, addiction, bank account, home, celebrity or job status. I’ll spend the rest of my days trying to be more like him even though I’ll never be as cool.
