Dear Jackie,
As your older brother, I think I should set you straight on a couple of things. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was on the day you were born. It was a Saturday in February, but for the past seventy years I’m never sure if it fell on the 20th or the 21st. I know that our friend Deana’s was the opposite day, but I could never recall who was older. I had to look it up again this year.
The day you were born, Dad took Sharron and me across the street to stay with the Grahams. Bill was my friend and Susan was Sharron’s. We weren’t there very long when Polly told me that Mom and Dad had just made it to the hospital. I don’t think they were there an hour before you were born. When I asked if they got a boy or girl, I can’t over emphasize my disappointment when Polly said, “It’s a girl!”
“Why didn’t they get a boy. I wanted a boy.” I thought getting a baby was like picking out a puppy, so Mom and Dad had a choice.
And then Polly said, “They were out of boys. They got the last baby left.”
If I knew what an F-bomb was then, I probably would have dropped one.
My next clear memory is of a question I asked mom shortly after you came home.
“Mom, when babies are born, and they don’t have any hair, how do you know if it’s a boy or a girl.” In my mind girls had long hair and boys had short. My almost seven-year-old brain must have kicked in because just before she answered, I had an epiphany. “Oh, yea. I know how.” That moment helped shape my life forever.
My next BIG memory is how your arrival changed Sharron and my home life. You became the center of attention. Babies do that. Before you were born, if Sharron and I were still up when Dad got home, we raced to the back door to greet him. He carried a black lunch box with a thermos of coffee with cream and sugar. Mom packed his lunch every day. I can still remember the smell of the coffee.
We’d hug his neck while he sat on the top step to the kitchen to take off his work shoes. Then we’d look inside the box. There was always a treat. Sometimes we’d find a single cookie wrapped in waxed paper, or half a banana, but there was always something. On a really big day, there would be two pieces of hard candy. That all stopped after you were born. Dad wanted to see “the baby” as soon as he got home. You were special right from the beginning.
In no particular order of importance, here’s a few additional thoughts.
- We learned of your difficulty hearing early in life. The first time you had “tubes” put in your ears was when we lived with Grandpa Barner after our house fire. Mom and Dad were worried about you.
- Sharron and I poked fun at your difficulty. We’d pretend to have a conversation in front of you by just mouthing our words. We thought it was great fun. You didn’t. We didn’t mean any harm. We were just having fun at your expense.
- When you were still sitting in a highchair, Mom and Dad bought you frilly underwear. I remember you sitting in the chair, dressed only in your underwear, so you wouldn’t get your clothes dirty while you ate. There’s a family picture of the Thanksgiving event somewhere.
- Bill Graham and I had you convinced that we had an elf living in our basement a few days before Christmas. You were probably five at the time. You were afraid to go downstairs but we coaxed you down a few steps. I stood on one end of the sliding doors that hid the sump pump and Bill stood at the other. I reached behind the door, pretending to give the elf a bottle of pop. Bill took it from the other end, took a drink, and handed it back. You could see me, but you couldn’t see him, so I convinced you that the elf drank the pop.
- I think you were in first grade, maybe Kindergarten, when you came home from school with a broken collarbone. Everyone at our house was angry because no one called from the school. Mom and Dad both went up to raise holy hell.
- Mom took Sharron and me to the movies one Saturday. We left you and Dad at home. When we came back, your head was wrapped in a huge bandage. Dad was working in the backyard, and you cracked your head open. Dad thought you might have picked up a screwdriver, ran with it, and fell.
I don’t remember much after I became interested in girls. You liked the girls I brought home. Sharron not so much. I think you thought they were “cool”. That began when I was in high school.
When I went off to college, you were eleven and still in elementary school. You were entering your adolescent years, while I was studying for a career and learning to be independent. We were learning about ourselves but in distinctly different stages of our life. You had a cool older brother, and I had a kid sister but little in common.
By the time high school rolled around, you took notice of my friends. You thought several were cute and flirted a bit. You went so far that you asked one, Mike Smith, if he’d like to accompany you to a school dance. Mike let you down easy and wrote a nice letter declining the invitation.
Our relationship hasn’t always been perfect, but that’s how families operate. We made choices that didn’t always have happy endings. But that’s just how life is. We make mistakes and hope we don’t make the same ones over and over.
Your biggest accomplishment was raising two daughters and helping raise a grandson. Much of your time with the girls was solo, and while you were raising your girls, Ruth and I were working with our three. All five turned out great. We can both celebrate that.
Since Ruth’s passing, no one has been more supportive, and I appreciate that. I think you worry too much, but that’s just a part of your nature.
Over the past seventy years I’ve learned that having two sisters was a good thing for me. That almost seven-year-old boy who thought getting babies was like picking out a puppy is happy with the siblings he has. All three of us are very different. We’ve exercised our independence in different ways. Mom and Dad may have seen it as a challenge, but I think that’s a good thing.
When I’m asked to describe my sisters, I tell people that one could have been a nun and the other a pole dancer. In case there’s any question, you’re the pole dancer.
Love, Rob
P.S. Happy Birthday