Don and me as toddlers, from this video
By luck, my mother and my aunts gave birth to three boys of roughly the same age: me and my cousins, Kelly and Don. Furthermore, they had second children who were all boys, my brother Jim to run with me, Matt to go with Kelly, and Tim with Don. When we got together as a family, that meant we had a built-in gang of 6 boys, and the adults could get us out of their hair by telling us to run off and do boy things. Catch garter snakes and frogs. Curl up and read a ragged box full of comic books. Go for a hike. Gather sticks to use as swords. Climb trees. Boys are predictable and controllable, to a point, and we were happy to run wild.
We weren’t all the same, though. I was the weakest of the bunch, a nerd who preferred the comic book option. Kelly was the wild child, the one who always had a pocket knife, who wanted to set things on fire, who sneered at the wimpy egghead, and who’d usually end up wrestling me to the ground to prove that he was the most macho. He was a piece of barbed wire with a leather handle. Don, on the other hand, was the actual big guy among us — Kelly didn’t pick fights with him — and was solid, secure, and reliably peaceable, an oak tree supporting his friends and family.
An anecdote told to me by my Uncle Ed:
Ed: “One of the cousins carved your name into the furniture in my room.”
Me: “It wasn’t me!”
Ed: “I know. You aren’t dumb enough to sign your vandalism, and Don would never try to get someone in trouble that way, so I know exactly who was responsible.”
Later, when I actually saw the carving, I discovered that they had misspelled my first name. It’s only four letters long!
Only ten years old, and we already had the personalities that would shape the rest of our lives. As you know, I grew up to be a teacher and biologist. Sadly, Kelly became even more of a trouble-maker, had a few run-ins with the law, and ended up dying of a heart attack, alone in an isolated house in Eastern Washington. Don became a Mormon, married a good Mormon woman, raised a family on a farm in Oregon, and was a pillar of his church and his community. He retired to Arizona, and lately was working to move his elderly mother to live near him so he could better take care of her. All of that was typical Don.
Yesterday I got a phone call to let me know that Don had abruptly died of a heart attack.
Now I don’t know what his mother, my Aunt Sally, is going to do. The reliable anchor of his family is no more. I’m waiting for a phone call with more news.
The gang of 6 boys is over (two of our brothers have also died), not that we were getting together regularly to cause trouble. It was reassuring to know that Don was was still solid and reliable, and now that is gone.
Much of my life’s philosophy comes from the music I listened too as a teenager and young adult. starting in my late teens I would go to the record store and buy two or three albums without knowing anything about the artists or the music. I would listen to them for weeks at a time, over and over again, until I knew everything on the album. PZ your post is about growing old and there are two songs I go too regarding people as they approach the sunset of their lives. .
The first is Talking Old Soldiers by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Here are a few lyrics that helped me understand life when I was just a baby. Sorry, they may not sound as profound without the supporting music and rest of the lyrics.
Well, do they know what it’s like to have a graveyard as a friend
So keep well, keep well old friend
And have another drink on me
Just ignore all the others
You got your memories
The second song is from John Prine and it is titled Hello in There
You know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say
“Hello in there, hello”
There’s never enough time with family members that we love. And toward the end of their lives, time seems to accelerate.
Condolences.
One day (hopefully during your lifetime) we shall discover eternal life, not being distracted or de-motivated by nonsensical myths.
I’m sorry for your loss.
I’m sorry to hear news of your loss.
He sounds like a wonderful person who will be missed by many.
I’m sorry for your loss and your aunt’s loss.
I’m sorry for your loss, PZ.
My husband had three brothers, and all four of them were active boys. My husband was the nerd, but was just slightly less troublesome than his brothers. The wildest of the four died young, the result of a motorcycle accident.
When my mother-in-law was alive, she had some hilarious stories about raising four boys.
When I asked her how she escaped with her sanity, her answer was “Who says I’m sane?”
I was just having this conversation with my daughter-in-law this morning, after she told me about one grandson getting three staples in his head from doing a flip off of the diving board and the other one having a fractured leg from a misplaced Taekwondo
kick.
I told her that I’ve used Mom’s line while raising four girls and one wild boy and now it is her turn to use it!
My condolences.
Do not expect a call anytime soon.
I am here. Working very hard to stay here. I am taking care of everything now. I am the last of 5 now. I got this. Right now I am kind of numb and somewhat freaked out. I have made changes long ago to keep my health and well being. I cannot promise anything. I just know that I will do whatever I can to stay around. All the best decisions for my health. All the doctor visits. Everything is checking out with good results. But all that doesn’t guarantee shit. But I need to take care of mom and make sure she doesn’t lose me. I miss them very much… Don, Tim, Debbie, and David, and also dad.
And I gotta feed my cats, Ella and Eddie.
I’ll see you around soon enough.
I’m sorry about your cousin. I’m sorry for his family, too — it’s in the hour of knowing he’s gone and the grief is always worst then.
Grieve well, though. The body does not survive, but some interesting stories about them may continue.
Sorry to hear about your cousin. It is nice to read about your family history every now and then. They are never ‘big’ histories, but life isn’t made of big histories. It’s the small ones that shape us the most. Take care.
Larry — give my condolences to your mother. She’s also the last of her generation!
PZ, thank you for sharing and please take my condolences. You write great stories about your family, maybe you should consider formalizing them in a family book for the next generation.
.
So sorry for your loss . I know what it’s like to have cousins that are like siblings.