Remember
HAPPY BUT MELANCHOLY
This has been an interesting summer. I have a wedding to attend next week, a wedding of a dear niece. (Named Bryn, brynnie!) She is my oldest niece, the daughter of my brother J.R. I'm the oldest in my family, J.R. was born 18 months later.
Remember
J.R. was better than any doll a girl could want. He was a handsome baby, and he talked back from a very early age. We played together, shared friends, loved a puppy Pal that we had to give away because he howled (I'm not really sure I loved Pal, I seem to remember getting caught in his chain more than once), and scared the crap out of each other the day we were digging a hole by the side of the house, hit something metallic and somehow convinced ourselves we had hit the gates of hell.
Remember
For almost three years our family consisted of my parents, J.R. and me. We lived in a little dollhouse of a home with a white picket fence, a blue spruce and "horse tree" in the front year, and a swingset, sandbox, clothesline and garden in the backyard.
Children only know what is obvious. I didn't see anything different about J.R. He was a motormouth, he was a lot of fun, he was my best friend. I found a letter my grandmother had saved, a letter that my mother had sent her when J.R. was 8 months old. "J.R.is getting bigger, and still hasn't rolled over. The doctor has put him on a diet. . . "
Remember
After three years, another addition joined the family, brother Grizzl. He was a big baby, strong and healthy. By then my folks knew that J.R. had Cerebral Palsy, a condition caused by some sort of trauma at birth. He would have to have assistance walking. (Mom had Grizzl, that big lug, naturally. I think she wanted to avoid all drugs that might interfere with the delivery.) Two more children quickly followed Grizzl, and then, after a lull of five years youngest bro BooBoo showed up.
Remember
I think I probably caught on to the permanence of J.R.'s difference when he started school at the same time I did. Only, I walked to the kindergarten three blocks away while he rode in a "special transportation" car to a special school. For most of our academic careers we went to different schools, until finally in Senior High the "special ed" was centered at the high school I attended. (Our city had four high schools at that time.)
Remember
It was MY Senior Year, but somehow J.R. managed to get a full page picture in my yearbook. Argh! Did I mention the kid was a talker? A debater? A cornet player? (All that wind put to good use. He even marched in parades. His friend Jim would push him in a wheelchair.) And he was always asking my friends when they were going to marry him. (I think my friend S always regretted that she didn't.)
Remember
My parents had decided early on that J.R. was going to do anything he wanted: he might have to do it slower or in a different manner than other folks, but live he would. And so he did. He went to college, got tear-gassed in the demonstrations in the 70's, earned a degree in English, got a Masters in Psychology. He was a computer geek. He sky-dived. He married, had three beautiful children. And he died in a freak accident.
Remember
The experts say that "acceptance" is the last stage of grieving. Hmmm. Maybe some of us just get stuck. Or maybe "acceptance" works most of the time, but momentous occasions such as weddings bring up feelings. I don't know. I'm not an expert. I just know that I've been slightly "off" this summer, and as I was reading LuAnne Rice's book Beach Girls today, which has a brother/sister relationship at its core, I was bawling like a baby.
Remember
So once again, blog as therapy has helped me. The tears are drying, a smile is returning. Next Saturday a beautiful young woman will marry, and her being here is testimony to the strength of a man named J.R. A man who won't be with us in body, but whose spirit will be reflected in his daughter's brown eyes.
And, he's also responsible for the longest blog post I have ever made. Sheesh, J.R.!