Born in Albany, Georgia on January 14, 1953.
Rickey Michael Gay - Online Memorial Website
Memorial Website - Rickey Michael Gay
Rickey Gay
Born in Georgia
53 years
347345
Life story
January 14, 1953
March 27, 2006
Passed away on March 27, 2006 at the age of 53.
This is a song that Rick started to write, but didn't finish.
"Song of Me"
I've Learned of Hate
I've Learned of War
I've Learned of Love
and So Much More.
You say I am what I have learned.
To me and tomorrow there is no concern.
I am but a speck of light traveling through infinity."
April 22, 2006
Rickey Michael Gay was born in Albany, Georgia on Jan 14, 1953 to Irven and Ethel Gay. He was the eighth of nine children which consisted of five girls and 4 boys. From the oldest to youngest: Betty, Lavada, Ethelyn, Raymond, Rachel, Robert, Rickey, and Daniel. As I write this for my darling husband, there are only two left, Robert and a sister in CA. Rick lived in GA, Lakeland, FL, Ohio, and AL. I meet him Sep 13, 1997 through American Singles. He was living in Jasper, AL and I was living in Huntsville, AL. We fell in love quick, but waited to marry until Jun 5, 1999. Rick had 4 degrees in Computers and Business, but he loved working construction. He loved to be working outside. He was use to working hard, up to 16 hour days until he started feeling really tired all the time and feeling like having the flu all the time. He was feeling bad when we were married and was sick ever since. It took the doctors 2 years to find out he had Hepatitis C which had caused cirrhosis, by the time they figured out what was wrong with him. Rick had to quit working and go on disability around July 2000. This was really hard on him. He was use to working hard and wanted to provide for me and do his 'part' . He just couldn't. He had to stay at home because most days were spent in bed. He would help around the house as much as he could, cooking dinner for me, doing laundry, taking care of the house when he was up to it. Rick was in constant pain and in and out of the hospital. On top of the Hep C and cirrhosis, he had 5 bad disks in his back. I don't know how he got through each day in such pain, but he did. He fought the fight as long as he could, but his body finally gave out and he passed away on March 27, 2006 in the hospital from a massive internal infection.
April 25, 2006
This was found on Rick's computer. He didn't get a chance to finish it, unfortunately:
"Rickey Michael Gay's Life"
"I am sitting here in early October of 2005 and decided to write a little about my life and how it was, to me. I have often thought about my life while lying down about to go to sleep. I tell myself I need to write down what I can remember so if anyone ever wants to know anything about me, maybe, they can get an idea of what it was like growing up in the south just before the civil rights era and on into the new millennium.
I started my life at the Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Ga. It was January 14, 1953. My family and I lived off the main road of Sylvester Road. Last time I was there it was across the street from the Arrow Shirt Factory. We lived in a small trailer park where my aunt Bell lived. There was a family owned grocery store on Sylvester at the point where you drove into the trailer park.
I remember the store, because you could buy an ice cream cone for a nickel with one scoop of you choice of the three different flavors of ice cream available during this time in history. The flavors were strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate. For a penny more, you could buy an additional scoop of ice cream. You could buy as many scoops as the cone would hold. I only remember being bought a cone by my aunt once.
My father’s job at this time was that of a mechanic. He worked for himself out of a small garage in the park. I do not remember it, but have seen pictures of it. I remember my aunt’s trailer. It was a small AirStream. I do not remember the one we lived in. That was about all I can remember of my first few years. From here we moved to a nice brick house in Albany. The youngest of my sisters, Ethelyn, (I had four older sisters, one old enough to be my mother), who was a lot older than me still lived with us. She was dating a guy name Spiro, who she later married.
I was around three years old at this time. I remember a lot of what happened when we lived here. I remember one day when my parents had gone off somewhere and left my oldest sister Betty and her husband Bill in charge. Bill decided we were not minding him, so he decided to spank us. I told myself I would get back at him when I grew up. By the time I was an adult the spanking really didn’t seem like that big a thing so I let it go. I remember my older brother Robert being allowed to go to the Christmas parade, but was told I was too young to go. I started bawling. My youngest sister, Ethelyn, told me she would take me to see Bambi at the local theater instead. I was elated. To this day I do not remember anything about the picture. I remember watching my parents putting presents under the Christmas tree so to tell us Santa had put them there. We knew there was no such person as Santa Claus. I do not remember that Christmas day or any of the presents we received. I also remember Ethelyn and her then husband Spiro took me to spend the night with them so they could play mommy and daddy. I do not remember what happened there, just that I went to their apartment to sleep over. This is where my younger brother, Daniel Raymond, was born, on December 3, 1958. My older brother was upset because my father was leaving us, going to the hospital to pick my mother up after having Danny. To calm him down my father told him he was bringing a birthday present home for him, since my brothers birthday had been a couple of days before. When my father walked in the house with my mother carrying Danny, my father looked at Robert, while he was pulling the blanket away from Danny’s face, he told Robert that here was his birthday present. Being seven years old, Robert, did not quite understand. My father then told him that Danny was born on the same day as he was so he was like a birthday present. Robert wasn’t too happy about this. He just turned around and walked away. I also remember one time my mother was pregnant with Danny and was lying down to relieve the heat. I came running in the house and told my mother it was a certain time, by the clock, and my mother, just to satisfy me told me I was right. I was elated considering I could not tell time.
We moved from there to a house on Register Avenue. At this location we lived in a house that had been converted into three large apartments. It was one of those old southern mansions that the owner could not rent out like it was, unless being made into what it was. The old uptown mansions did not have the land, which came with the plantations so they would be converted into rooming houses or converted to apartments, such as the one we lived in. It made it nice because my grandmother and aunt rented the other two apartments.
I remember quite a bit of the happenings at this location. I remember my cousins who stayed there with my grandmother. There was Barbara Ann, Carolyn, and Johnny. All of them were around ten years older than me. I love every one of them. I remember one day I went to turn on a light, which was a bulb holder with a cord running to the house for power, and was instantly locked on to the bulb because of being shocked. Johnny heard me yell and ran down to where I was. I had to stand on top of a picnic table to be able to reach the bulb. Johnny reached up to grab me and then he too was locked in the power of the electricity. In the mean time Barbara Ann had ran out of the house to see why I was yelling and saw Johnny get locked on to me. She was the smart one. She ran back into the house and unplugged the light cord. As soon as it was over Barbara Ann made sure we were all right and then began to laugh at the site of us with our eyes about to bug out of our heads thinking we were about to die. There were other times I remember like when I caught Barbara Ann smoking and she got me to take a puff. I told myself I would never do that again. I surely lied then. I began smoking at around the age of fifteen and have not completely quit yet. I did quit for a year-and-a-half at one time and then again for about six months about six months later. I am sure there were many more, but cannot remember them at this time. While at this location, I remember getting a piece of ice; I was sucking on, stuck in my throat. I was frantic. I knocked on my Aunt Bell’s screen door and she looked up from her ironing. I could not hear any thing and was very scared. Seeing I could not understand her, my aunt, bent over almost touching the floor. I understood and copied her. Immediately, the ice popped out and bounced of the porch. My aunt went back to ironing, acting as though nothing happened. My feelings and admiration for her grew a thousand fold. I remember one Christmas when my father was out of work. We did not even have a tree. My father went and borrowed change to enable him to buy a little wind up helicopter for my brother and me. On one night my father came into the house caring two of my sister’s children. They were babies at the time. The other three of her children just looked at us. A family called the Bacons also helped move the children into our house. My sister had left the children at their house and ran off with some man. My father told Mr. Bacon that there was no way he could afford to take care of the children. He told him how he was out of work and could barely feed us. The children stayed at our house while the Bacon’s went and got in touch with the welfare agency. The two babies were adopted out, but the older children were sent to an orphanage in Springhill, Tennessee. We did not see the older ones again for about ten years.
I have all kinds of memories of the last place we lived. I fell in a fishpond in one of the neighbor’s yards. My older brother, Robert, and one of his friends were with me. I remember looking up from the bottom of the pond and seeing things floating on the surface. I realized I was standing on the bottom of the pond and pushed myself up to the surface where my brother caught my hand and pulled me out. We had a lot of dogs there. One was very special to my brother. It was a black lab puppy . One day it was hit by a car and Robert took it really bad. I remember seeing him sitting on the front porch looking out in the street and crying. I just turned and walked away. I figured Robert would want the dog buried in our little graveyard we had started for pets, or any other animals, which died on us. We had buried a cat, gold fish and several other animals that I don’t remember. He said the dog was too messed up, from being hit by the car, to bury.
I remember starting school here and being put in one classroom then being moved to another. My teacher’s name was Mrs. Dill. Being young children we all made fun of her name. I remember during recess that there was a merry-go-round where the boys would let it get going as fast as could then run and grab hold of the bars around the merry-go-round and then pulling ourselves onto the seat. Our legs would be horizontal because of the force, which was produced by the speed of the merry-go-round. When I was in my late teens we returned one time to the house and walked down to the school. I stood there looking at that merry-go-round and the sliding board and thinking about how small they actually were. In the first grade they seemed so large. "