I am the youngest of five children. I have always been and as far as I am concerned I always will be. This is true in spite of the sneaky, evil conniving disease that has taken my oldest brother and sister from me. Three just doesn't seem enough. It was bad enough when Jay succumbed in October after a valiant struggle with cancer. It was a further horror when Lee was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma in January. Hadn't we just done this? Wasn't the sacrifice of our oldest brother enough? How greedy is the cancer monster after all? We needed time to heal after saying good bye to the oldest child, the fair haired boy...the smart, funny and irreverent senior member of the frantic five. To have Lee taken from us so soon and so suddenly was adding insult to injury. How cruel can this evil beast be?
So, we are reeling. My mother, 82 a rubbin' 83 as my dear departed cousin Lonnie would say, is stoically soldiering on. Her mind still sharp even if her body is abandoning her at this stage, I know she feels this deeply and painfully. Oh, she loves us all, but your two first born...not to mention surviving your children. That has to be a special kind of hell on earth. I know that we siblings are feeling it and I'm quite certain she is too, although she chooses not to wail, gnash teeth and rant. Just as well, I'm reserving those behaviors for myself.
Jay: the oldest and the smartest. Oh, he would tell you he was the smartest, no holds barred with that guy. He was always very capable and confident. And yes he really was quite smart...it was not just bravado. He had the gray matter and moxie to back it up. When we first moved to Norfolk and lived in a nice comfortable blue collar neighborhood we would occasionally encounter a bully on the block. If they teased any of the rest of us, Mr. Smart Guy would first try to reason with them. If what he was saying went over their heads or they just persisted in being a-holes he would resort to fisticuffs and beat the crap out of them. He was nothing if not protective of his younger siblings.
Lee was the classy one, the artist. She dressed to the nines and had style and grace. She loved and created beautiful things with soothing colors. We used to love playing the game, MasterMind with her because her color combinations were easy to guess. She would never use any colors that were not complementary. When you eliminate half the pallete then it's just a matter of order. As she grew older and her artistic talents blossomed she was the one who did the decorating for family events. When my parents had big dinner parties and Thanksgiving buffets it was up to Lee to arrange the flowers and create the elaborate tablescapes for the buffet. She had flair. She had style.
Jay went on to become a lawyer. After a brief stint with a large firm in D.C. this guy who liked nature and fishing and such ended up moving to SW Virginia to set up practice with an old law school buddy. It was the perfect fit for a guy who enjoyed being a big fish in a small pond. He was also nothing more than a good old boy at heart. He was never happier than when he was hanging with the locals and picking their brains and sharing information on where the best fishing holes were or how to fix a bad socket. He just liked people and he liked regular people. He didn't really go for high fallutin'.
Lee got her degree in fine arts but ended up being side tracked for many years by the banquet and catering business for a large hotel. She did well there but eventually tired of depending on flaky 20 year olds. They often neglected to show up to staff the banquets and weddings, resulting in her having to cover for them by waiting tables and bartending...whatever needed doing and whenever it needed to be done. She worked days, evenings and weekends and it finally wore her down. It was not necessarily the gal who asked her for a corkscrew to open a bottle of champagne...it was a legion of sweet young things who didn't have the sense not to put a sharp object in a pressurized bottle that lead to her finally saying adios to a job that had gotten to be too much. After all she had made a conscious decision not to have children. Goodness knows she didn't want to raise anyone else's. She was fortunate enough to fall into the faux finishing business and was finally able to make a living doing the art she loved. She was good at it.
So, now they're gone and we are a smaller family and lesser people for it. I loved these two. They were fun, interesting and funny. Life will not be the same without them. Hold the ones you love and let them know you love them. Life really is too darned short.
