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?Today she is with my brothers?: Kevin Von Erich says farewell to his mom, Doris Adkisson

Posted: Oct 31st 2015 By: Robert Wilonsky - TheScoopBlog.DallasNews.com

Doris Adkisson died eight days ago in Hawaii, her home for the last eight years, but will be buried in Dallas on November 11. Doris, 82, will be laid to rest next to her husband Jack and their sons Chris, David, Mike, Kerry and Jack Jr. at Grove Hill Memorial Park following a memorial at First Baptist Dallas downtown.

?I will always love her, but today she is with my brothers,? says her sole surviving son Kevin. ?It?s a good day.?

The public is invited to her memorial, because Doris Adkisson lived much of her life in the public eye. Much of the time, it was against her wishes. In 1988 she told D?s Skip Hollandsworth she wanted to be known as Doris Adkisson ? preferred it, that one last vestige of normalcy. But by then, it was too late: She was the matriarch of Dallas? beloved wrestling family: wife of Fritz Von Erich and mother to boys whose lives and deaths have been told and retold countless times.

?But to be honest,? she told Hollandsworth, ?we hardly know who the Adkissons are anymore. We have been a wrestling family for so long. I suppose I want the family to know that when they are tired of being Von Erichs, there is a place they can come to where they can still be Adkissons. But I don?t know if you can ever stop being a Von Erich.?

Doris had long suffered from emphysema, even before she left Dallas and her Swiss Avenue manse and moved to Hawaii, where Kevin and his wife Pam and their kids and grandchildren have lived for close to a decade on a single, sprawling expanse of faraway paradise. When she died last week, she was surrounded by the entire family, which serenaded her with ?How Great Thou Art,? says Kevin?s daughter, Kristen Nikolas.

?I kissed her hand, and didn?t let it go,? Kristen says. ?Those hands raised six babies, taught me how to crochet, made about a million cups of coffee and held each one of us at one time or another as we cried over the deaths of our brothers or uncles, her sons. I couldn?t stop thinking about how much comfort her hands had offered considering what grief she?d experienced, and that I?d never see them outstretched again for a hug or hear the words, ?Come here, baby. Cry with Meme.? She was a rock, as clich? as it sounds, always willing to talk you through the sad times even though her own losses were so much greater.?

Doris Juanita Smith married her Crozier Technical High School sweetheart Jack Adkisson on June 23, 1950 ? when Jack was a junior at SMU, and a pretty decent tackle on the Mustangs football squad. Their marriage cost Jack his scholarship, and he transferred to Corpus Christi University before returning to Dallas in 1952 to play for the NFL?s Dallas Texans, which signed him as a free agent.

For a time, early during their marriage, Doris thought she and Jack would live a quiet, anonymous life. ?Jack, a raw behemoth of a man, wanted to move to Corpus Christi to open a bait stand,? wrote Hollandsworth in D in 1988. But by 1952, he found his true home: the Sportatorium. He became The Master of the Iron Claw and the father of wrestlers whose fame surpassed that of the mighty Fritz Von Erich.

The tragedy that consumed the family for years is well known ? it was the subject of a short ESPN documentary about Kevin just months ago.

And ?to the wrestling world, she was known as a woman who lived through the unfathomable,? Kristen says in a long, beautifully written note that arrived via email this morning. ?I?m sure people felt sorry for her. The truth is, even mothers with broken hearts have to wake up every morning, and she decided to make the most of the time she had left on this earth before being reunited with her boys.

?She loved having slumber parties with her girlfriends from junior high, shopping for antiques and rediscovering forgotten Bible verses. She was an encyclopedia when it came to Texas plants and birds, and when we moved to Hawaii in 2007 she had me order a new set of regional field guides so she?d still be able to give her grandkids the Latin names of every living thing in her yard.

?She never looked back on her life like a series of tragedies that only ended when she lost almost everything. She was never bitter. Meme was consistently faithful, and looked forward to each new day. During the last few years she found joy in enticing the first smile out of her newborn great-grandbabies, in twirling the curly-q?s of their hair that reminded her of her own baby boys. She found fulfillment in watching her orchids bloom and convincing stubborn trees to fruit or flower. She was patient and unwavering.?

Visitation begins at 1 p.m. in the Truett Chapel at First Baptist; the service, an hour later. The funeral will follow at Grove Hill. Says Kristen, flowers are welcome, but the family would prefer donations made to the Wounded Warrior project in Doris? name.

The family does not return to Dallas often these days. Kevin came to town last year to watch sons Ross and Marshall wrestle, but it wasn?t easy for the Texas boy now accustomed to his Hawaiian ways: ?I don?t see myself ever wearing shoes again,? he said.

But he will be here November 11 to say farewell, for a final time, to his mother.

?Boys learn a lot from their dads,? Kevin says. ?Things they?ll need as they grow. They may not realize it but they learn a lot from their mothers too. Life is not always about win this or defeat that, but also about ​mercy and understanding. I learned that from my mom.?