DEATH INTRUDES, LIFE IS SHORT!

My older brother, my Protector, my good friend, passed away on Sunday, April 25, 2007.

He had lived with me for the past 3 years. He was very sick and suffered a lot at the end. He was ready to meet his Maker, so I guess I should be thankful for that, but there is a blank spot in my life now.

The house is very quiet, except for Tiger my kitty. No other TV is going, no music in his room, no one to eat dinner with. I miss him.

I am including the tribute I wrote and read at his funeral. Some say they were very touched by it. I didn’t know what was happening in the church, because if I looked up at them, I probably wouldn’t have been able to finish reading it to them.

If you have a brother or sister, or a mother or father or other relative you love very much, tell them you love them. You won’t know until they pass away, how much you really cared for them. Life is short!

MY BROTHER
By Pat Hubbard

My brother Joseph Richard, McKown was a carpenter, a plumber, a mechanic, a sign builder, an artist, a jack-of-all-trades and a Patsy Cline lover.

He had a DARK, green thumb and could have been a world class baseball pitcher, but fate would not allow it.

During our young years, he was a sister agitator—meaning me. He’d tease and then claim innocence.

When I was about 3 years old, that agitation got him into some serious soul searching. Our mom told him to wash my face and hands, but he whispered menacingly, “I’m going to put you in the sink and give you a bath!”

Naturally I protested, which revolved into an argument. My father came to question the disagreement between us. I told my side and he told his. Since daddy couldn’t figure out who was lying, he put us both out on the back porch in the dark and said, “The devil gets people who lie. When you decide to tell the truth you can come in.”

Unknown to us, dad had slipped out of the front door and around to the side of the house. He had put a glove on the end of a broomstick and wiggled it just in the path of our vision. My brother thinking the devil had come to take the liar, screamed, “I did it, daddy I did it!” I was taken into the house and held in my dad’s arms and my brother left outside. I, fearing for his fate, pleaded his case and begged my father to bring him in so the devil wouldn’t take him away.

I am sure that today psychiatrists would say that was bad, bad, bad parenting, but it made an impression on both of us. He learned it’s bad to lie and I learned I loved my brother in spite of his teasing me all of the time.

When he was 17 years old, he was involved in a horrible accident where a drunken driver pushed him and his motorbike into an oncoming car. The prognosis was that he probably would die or would be an invalid for the rest of his life. After 9 days in a coma he returned to consciousness. Only to learn his optic nerve had been severed and that he was badly disfigured.

Finally, being sent home to fully recover, I learned some great lessons from my brother. Rather than going into seclusion, he rejoined his friends and lived as if nothing much had changed in his life. He never used his disability as a crutch for sympathy. He continued to have many friends, both male and female.

Dick learned a lot of his working skills under the capable instruction of our father. He was my dad’s right hand man, whether it was on a plumbing job or helping in dad’s home deconstruction business, many times missing out on some social experiences with his friends.

He was such a protector, my brother. After I became a teenager I developed a healthy interest in some of his male friends. But somehow even though they liked me, they never asked me out. I didn’t understand that. Some years later, I overheard him say he had warned them that I was “off limits.” Maybe he knew something I didn’t.

Dick fathered 4 children of his own and later adopted our younger brother’s three-year-old daughter when her father was killed.

His generosity was identified many times in our lives. After my first marriage of 19 years failed, he took a week off from his job, rented a U haul and helped move me and my 4 children from Beaufort South Carolina to Virginia. Whenever I have needed help with household or auto repairs he was there for my assistance. I cannot ever remember asking him for help that he didn’t respond, except, he wouldn’t do dishes.

In our mom’s final years of ill health, he lived with and cared for her needs, allowing my sister and I to get some relief.

Wherever he went, Dick tried to make people smile, even strangers, like the grocery cashier. Once while setting a bag of ice on the counter, he asked her, “Is this ice guaranteed?”
She looked at him in a quizzical manner. Then he added, “If this ice melts, can I bring it back?”

Needless to say, she looked at him in wonderment…then realized it was a joke. Making people laugh was his great joy.

In his final weeks, his goal was to live long enough to plant his garden. It was his driving force, his goal for the immediate future. 4 Days before he passed, he planted some of his tomato seeds in a little container in his room. That was 8 days ago. Today, the seedlings are about 3 inches tall and still reaching for the sky. Perhaps, they are trying to follow him into THE LIGHT.

For more tips and tools to on how to survive divorce and loss and make healthy relationship choices you are invited to visit http://www.Butterflyintonewlife.com or upathubbard@gmail.com Please make a comment on this article and I will respond.
Patricia Hubbard has Facilitated a Support Group for Separated, Divorced and Widowed people for the past 11 years.