Mark Jones
When I was a child, I experienced a traumatic event where I was stung over a thousand times by bees wasps and hornets. My body filled with adrenaline or epinephrine to save my life, but my liver couldn't produce the amine oxidase to remove it. This made me a superior athlete, but it also gave me heart-attacks and not just tachycardia, but real crushers where my heart stopped beating for over two minutes straight. I died hundreds of times but fought my way back to life.
In the 1970s and 1980s we didn't have the medical science we have today, and I was simply told by doctors that I wouldn't have a long life. Because of that, I never got married or had children, and instead just traveled about, working many hundreds of jobs, attending over 3000 festivals, seeing most American States and many other nations.
During my travels, I made my way to Seattle, and being the pied piper of my social group, convinced many of my friends to join me there. I started a sanitary stainless steel welding company and after building some of the first legal brewpubs, took up brewing as a hobby. I would brew up to 400 gallons at a time and we would throw massive parties with hundreds of guests, there at our home on 3rd Avenue nestled on the hill between Ballard and Phinney Ridge, with a sweeping view of the Olympic mountains.
I had two roommates (Pete and Gene) who had attended the Seattle Culinary school, and they would invite their Chef friends over. Since I was the only non-Chef, I would be the non-biased judge of their cook-offs lol! Before one homebrew party, Pete told me he was going to introduce a girl to me "You'll fall in love with her". That girl was Yvette Yates, and indeed, I fell deeply in love.
During the late 1990s, I dedicated the next years of my life to marrying this woman. I would say we were dating. She would say we were just friends, but for the most part, it was just the two of us. She would take care of my cat Zeke while I traveled to Europe, Mexico, Hawaii, various States. She said my trips inspired her.
I met her mother Mary several times, and her stepfather Glenn, and once I met her father Frank and his wife Mitsuko. One day I realized she had a new boyfriend - Grunge was in at the time, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains etc. and she liked the tattooed rockers with long hair. I couldn't compete with these guys, and it crushed me. I asked her to marry me but she said "you don't love me". My response was that "I loved you from the moment I met you".
And that was that. She packed her belongings into her VW bus and went off with her boyfriend to New Mexico or Arizona, I forget. Her friends tried to keep me updated on her adventures, especially the parts where she got sick or struggled, as if they felt I would want to know. But I loved her unconditionally. I always wanted her to be deliriously happy wherever she wound up, which was apparently many places reading her obituary.
I don't know how she passed. Suddenly? She took a lot of drugs, and many kinds. You could never tell when she was on them, or how much, or what kind, because she always had the same demeanor whether she was sober or totally ripped. My guess is that her heart just gave out, but I don't really know. I've looked for some kind of death record or coroner's report from New Orleans or Louisianna, but thus far have found none.
There is a lot I think I do know. I know she worked in New Orleans for a reportedly famous chef, who was grooming her to be the head chef of a new restaurant he was about to help open. I know she extensively traveled the States and the world and had quite a life before her untimely death at 35. I know she left behind many loving friends and family who still mourn her today.
I know that I still mourn her, because I deeply loved her and still love her to this day. I think of her often, especially on the 15th of every month. She was born on Jan 15th, she died on May 15th, I met her, proposed to her, she left me all on a 15th of various months. I type these words on June 19th and on the 15th, I cried for her, not because she had a tragic death because she seems to have lived a rich and full life. I cried because I miss her, and because somehow, I failed to convey to her the depths of my feelings. I'm crying right now as I type these words. I hope wherever her soul is right now, that Yvette Yates knows that so many people loved her. Forever yours Yvette.
Mark Van Harrison Jones "Punkinhead".