Last week I went to the funeral of my late husband’s last
surviving brother. He was 92. There were 16 years between them, my husband
being the baby of the family. Howard, the brother and the oldest, was more like
a father to my Jim than a sibling. Jim loved to tell of spontaneous fishing
trips, secret candy bars, and surreptitiously-given dollar bills that passed
between them as he was growing up. I grew up as an only child so I never knew
the deep roots of the sibling bond, making Jim’s and Howard’s relationship of a
particular interest to me, almost something foreign. The sibling relationship
has to be life’s longest-lasting relationship, longer even than our ties to our
parents or our spouses.
I’m positive Jim would say Howard was one of his best teachers,
a staunch protector, and a stand-in caretaker, all leading to an indestructible
closeness later in life. Howard and Jim grew up in Beckley , West Virginia ,
with six other siblings. Their father built houses for a local coal company and
their mother, like most others, was a stay-at-home mom. When Howard and his
family moved away, the second oldest brother, Jack, stepped in to fill the
vacancy, but the bond was never quite as deep as that between Jim and Howard.
Even though most direct interaction between them ceased, Howard’s existence
mattered just the same.
I met Jim when he was in the Air Force stationed in Dover , Delaware ,
my home State. We married in 1963 and lived as a family in Delaware for sixteen years. After my mom
died in 1975, we talked off and on about moving to Florida
where Howard and his family had lived for several years, and finally, in 1979,
we followed Howard to Gainesville .
I had met Howard a few times at family reunions and funerals, but most of my
knowledge came second-hand through Jim. I had little to fear ahead of our move
because I knew we had a protector paving our way, and that is exactly how
things turned out. All of our moving questions passed through Howard first, and
we took his advice seriously.
After we were settled in Gainesville , Howard and Betty became our
first best friends. We went to church together, socialized together, and each
family lent a hand whenever the other needed help. In the beginning that was
somewhat one-sided, but soon the playing field leveled out, and we were on an
equal footing with each other.
As I sat at the funeral last week, I thought of all we had
shared, the card games, the Christmases, the family dinners, the church
excursions, the fishing trips, the rides to Cedar Key for dinners, the pizza
night get-togethers at Godfathers, the doctors’ appointments, the Gator games, the
horseshoe pitching contests, the blueberry picking, and just sitting around,
drinking coffee and talking, such wonderful times in retrospect, but such
ordinary times as they were happening.
As my eyes rested on the casket, I thought of all these
things and of their early lives in West
Virginia . What had they dreamed of doing with their
adult lives? Had they turned out as they had hoped? We all have our own
memories, but we seldom think of the hopes and dreams of our loved ones during
their younger years. I remember Jim once saying he had wanted to be an engineer
and live in Brazil .
Where did that come from? I wonder what Howard dreamed of? Somehow, sometimes we
forget our dreams when we reach that magic age of adulthood with all its pull
and push. But in the end, it’s best to be satisfied, cherish our memories and
make some more if time allows. Although Howard and Betty moved to Winter Haven several
years ago to be near their children, it’s like I said earlier, just their
existence mattered most.
2 comments:
Connie, this is so poignant and true. Thank you for sharing.
Very beautiful! I count 8 siblings. Howard, Jack, Lorraine, George, Jean, mom, Mae and Jim. Nine if you count Vada Pauline, who died of scarlet fever as an infant.
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