Second Row, Piano Side: Mama's Baby Brother

Mama and her brother, Robert

I don't exactly know when my mama's brother and his family moved to our hometown. I assume it was when he married. Mama and Daddy had already started the church and had moved to the new location.

I always knew how much mama loved my Uncle Robert. She often told stories about the games they played. She was the baby girl and he was the baby boy in a family of 9. She said he was the clown in the family and he made them all laugh. She said he could mimic anyone.

Mama tells her story...

"I think the earliest thing I remember is when my little brother, Robert was born. I was three years old. When it was time, Daddy went for the doctor leaving me and my older sister with Pa. My Aunt Eva came to stay with mama while she waited for the doctor to arrive. The baby didn't want to wait and Aunt Eva delivered my baby brother. I was swinging in a tire under a china berry tree when I heard the baby's first cry. I was so proud of my little brother and as soon as he was big enough, I was allowed to hold him as much as I wanted. As he grew, everyone teased me that I was going to carry him on my hip until his feet dragged the ground and my hip would grow crooked.

One day Mama had picked a bucket of cucumbers and sat them on a shelf on the back porch. Robert wanted a cucumber but was too small to reach the bucket. Pulling the bucket down, he spilled cucumbers everywhere and the bucket was the first thing he felt. Robert let out a loud scream and Mama and 4 sisters came running. The broken edge of the bucket cut his lip all the way into the edge of his nose. A neighbor took him to the town doctor for stitches. I disappeared behind the old log kitchen to cry. I thought my little brother was going to die.

Robert and I grew up together and mama made him go everywhere with me. On my second date with your daddy, Robert caught us kissing. I was scared for weeks that he would tell mama. He teased me and made me do his share of the chores. After weeks of the teasing and taunting, I finally confessed. Mama said, "Oh shoot, I kissed your daddy more before we married than I have since."

Our families remained close through the years getting together during the Holidays, weekends and Summer--that is before the accident. Every thing in our life was "before the accident" or "after the accident."

Uncle Robert was by our side when the doctor told us that Brian was gone. At the funeral, he and Aunt Shirley sang, "I Don't Need to Understand," and he sobbed afterwards. My cousins cried with us, but we seldom got together as before.

The Family on the Second Row, Piano Side was forever changed, but we never forgot how our uncle, mama's brother stood by our family through the greatest crisis of our life.