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Memories of Jim
Mom once told me my brother Jim had such an infectious smile as a baby, she called him "Sunny Jim." That smile was a winner, capable of stealing any girl's heart. Jim had Mom's eyes, the prettiest crystal blue. They sparkled when he was happy, revealing the inveterate tease, and when he was angry, the darkest blue--like a storm over the ocean--enveloped the twinkle in his eye.
I was about six or seven when Jimmy joined the Marines. I still remember how proud I was of him the first time he came home in his dress blues. Could there have been any more handsome big brother than my big brother Jim? I don't think so. That smile, those eyes, his shoulders so straight and broad, oh he was a sight to behold! He brought me a satin pillow cover, the kind with fringe all the way around, and in the center, there was a poem just for me, "Sister."
When did he come home from the service? I don't even remember now. One day I was missing him, longing for that big brother to sweep me in his arms and laugh with me, and the next, he was teaching me a right cross that could do some damage, much to his own dismay.
After his discharge from the Marines, Jim went to work for the City of Binghamton, our hometown. It wasn't easy work by any means. He cleared the streets from the snow in the winter, did street repairs in the summers, the heavy work made for a man with broad shoulders like his. He was an active man, on the go from the moment he got up in the morning till he rested at night. During the summers, I often commented that he was so darkened from the sun, that rather than those of us whose skin turned more golden brown in the baking process, that his always turned deep reddish brown. I see that color even now in my mind's eye.
Jim had a freak on the job accident in 1980, leaving him with severe degenerative spinal inuries. He had countless operations in a fruitless effort to repair the crushed and fused disks, and by the spring of 1990, he was officially pronounced a quadriplegic. Still, he was my shining star.
Perhaps it's my own joy of life and living that made me long so much to excite Jim about life again after that accident. I wanted to bring him back to excitement despite that quadriplegia, like the Jimmy I remember in my childhood, that big brother whose aspirations were high and whose fears were low, or so he attempted to show them to be. I adored him in his youth, giggled in my childhood to think that my girlfriends longed for him to notice them; I often got into mischief with him as my protector when I was in my late teens and early twenties; I grew angry with him for his allowing life to destroy him before the accident, and I ached for him after the accident--but I never stopped adoring him. I wanted so much to share the joys of life and living with him again, so he wouldn't give up his will to live.
I am pleased that he finally let down that rigid will enough to buy the computer I'd urged him to get, the kind with voice recognition (it would not have mattered if he'd been able to use the keyboard...his spelling was atrocious!], because I knew without his ties to the world beyond, that he would give up. He didn't. He kept fighting, so much so, that despite his own pain, he demanded to be able to explore a local cemetery here, where he discovered an entire area about to be destroyed by the progress of highway improvement. That area would have been gone forever, and whether or not we're talking about the historical context, as I am in this particular case, I found it also a morality and ethics issue, because there would have been a wanton and insensitive act of destroying the graves of people whose families were still here and still caring. In this particular case, however, it was even more shocking that the highway might have destroyed a section of this cemetery: Jim had discovered these were the graves of Civil and Revolutionary War era soldiers and their families! Among those buried there...John Wilkes Booth's granddaughter, who died here when she contracted pneumonia as she toured the country as an actress. Jim singlehandedly fought for this area of the cemetery to be declared as an historical section, and therefore preserved that area for good.
On his death, the cemetery erected a flagpole in his memory, that all who saw, would remember him and what he'd done. But none will remember nearly as much as I, that he did this in a period of his life when his body was so wracked with pain...all the way through when he couldn't even feed himself again. Still, he wasn't only my hero. He was a hero of many, a man who did his part in preserving the Union, always the Marine, and always my big brother Jimmy.
Effective immediately, I am sorry, but I've had to remove access to my guest book. I have been patient with Lycos and Gear in my effort to resolve problems their transitions have caused, but the situation has grown increasingly worse. It's been six months since I've had access to my guest book. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
