Nellysford
Nelson County, Virginia
By Tommy Stafford
I’ve written many of these over the past 22 years of making Nelson my permanent home. Some hurt more than others. But all matter. This one really hurts. A lot.
Many, many years ago Jimmy Koschara sat across the table from me in the old Margaritas Restaurant in Nellysford, tears swelling up in his eyes. Life had taken a hard turn. I remember, sort of, walking through this with him over the months ahead and eventually seeing him come out the other side. It’s what you do when someone is your friend. It was just one of many challenges he overcame.
I actually knew Jimmy’s dad, also Jim, first.
Jimmy was real Nelson. Local. He knew the history, and the people.
A few years ago Jimmy stopped me in the old Wintergreen Hardware store and told me, “I have some bad news.” He had cancer. Jimmy wasn’t a guy to sit around, ever. He was active in the forestry service for years. Even in semi retirement he would go on missions out west when the big fire hit and they needed manpower. He even did some work while taking treatment. He was also a Class B general contractor, almost everyone knew him from that.
Jimmy beat his cancer eventually. It was brutal. But he made it. Then, it came back. The second time wasn’t as forgiving. It spread, slowed down, then sped up, and sometime in the late summer and fall of this year the obvious outcome was staring Jimmy squarely in the face. He approached it with grace, sometimes fright. But with character. He lived his final months as he wanted and enjoyed what time he had left.
Jimmy often spoke to me about anything a man would worry over as he knew his time here was coming to an end. His family mostly. Will they be ok? “I want them to be able to get over me not being here,” he once told me. He knew life goes on and as long as people could remember him with a smile most days, that would be a win.
If you’ve been in Nelson any length of time, you’d be hard pressed to forget Jimmy. He will be easy to remember. Many of us have a piece of his and his family’s craftsmanship left behind as a legacy. Just this past summer Jimmy oversaw the construction of a marvelous wooden bridge that crosses our creek. We wanted it to look like it had been here for years and years. Not something that didn’t belong. He and his son made it happen. Ironically, that’s one of the last projects Jimmy was able somewhat be a part of before his health really started failing. We have, appropriately, named it The Jimmy Bridge. It will have a bronze placard put on it in his memory.
We got the call Sunday morning December 7th that Jimmy probably wouldn’t make it. Yvette rushed to go see him one last time. Just a couple of weeks before Christmas his tired body fighting cancer gave up. Jimmy crossed over his own bridge just like the countless ones he’d built for so many other people during the years.
The last time I saw Jimmy in person was in the early fall of this year. We’d put together a little Brunswick stew cookout in front of the barn here on the farm. Jimmy wasn’t moving well and was pretty sick and beat up from treatments, but he drove out for a little while. He wanted to see friends. This was but a handful of them, but good ones. I didn’t even get to say goodbye that afternoon. Peyton and I had taken the side by side to go get some firewood. We waved at Jimmy as he was headed down the driveway to go back home and rest. That was my last time to see Jimmy. Sort of apropos, one final wave.
Oddly, I think Jimmy might have known that was the last time we’d see each other. He would always bring his very fancy camp chair to the farm anytime we’d have a get together. He left it that day and later told me by phone, “You keep that chair in the barn. It belongs there now.”
I got some texts back and forth from Jimmy over the next few weeks, but they became more infrequent. The last one he sent was, “One day at a day at a time Tommy. I miss y’all.”
We miss you already Jimmy. Still have that restaurant gift card you gave us from last Christmas. Think we might just use that in the coming days, in your memory.
Ride high my friend, you’re pain free now.
I’m sure there will be a remembrance for Jimmy in the coming weeks. Once I know more and have additional obit info, I’ll update it here.
