todo

English is unique among the world’s 7,100 known languages because of its use of the verb “do.”

The word itself is a vestige of Celtic languages that flowed through time from Old English to Middle English and into the language we speak today.

For instance, an English speaker today would ask, “Did you notice he paints?”

A French speaker would put it more succinctly: “Notice you he paints?”

Linguist John McWhorter calls the use of “to do” in English “the meaningless do” — a distinctive attribute that vexes even the most competent student attempting to learn our language.

There was nothing meaningless about Hollis Williford and his compulsion to rise up each day and do something, anything. He had many things to do, to get off his chest.

His life was defined by doing, and in this way, he created a lasting legacy.

But time was Hollis’ greatest enemy, and he was not satisfied with just being. He had to do.

As a young man, he bore great and unexpected responsibilities that slowed him from doing what he was meant to do.

When his father abandoned the family, Hollis, in his early 20s at the time, remained with his mother, brother and sisters to support them financially. Diagnosed with diabetes as a young man and faced with a near-death experience in his early 50s, he was acutely aware of the compression of time, that his life would be shortened and the ideas in his head would have less time to blossom and come to fruition.

Hollis said he had two fears:

The first was being bored, which he never was.

“I’ve heard people say, ‘I guess I’ll just go to the bar and have a few drinks. I just don’t have anything else to do.’ I cannot conceive of people not having anything to do,” he said. “I can’t understand that when I think about the things I would like to do and the places I would like to go and the things I would like to accomplish with whatever I have left of the life that I have. The problem I have is not having enough time to do it all.”

The second was wasting a life, which he didn’t do.

“I would like people to know that I have not wasted a life,” he said, “that all the efforts have been for the positive, and that’s a big part of my fulfillment.”

The irony of his life is that his perceived lost time drove him harder, further and faster — many times to the detriment of his health — thus shortening the minutes, hours and days he had left to create.

But Hollis would not want to be defined by his health; he would want to be remembered for his work and, as he grew older, for his ideas about art and creative processes that he imparted to friends, family and colleagues.

These things live on in countless places — in the minds of the people he knew and loved, and in the institutions and private collections where his life’s work remains for all to see.