Jimmy was my oldest brother. He was so handsome and brave. One of the best storytellers I ever knew. He had the kindest heart... He was the best of us.
He was nearly grown by the time I was born. My brothers were each about three years apart and I was born eight years after my youngest older brother Joe. I loved them all but Jimmy was very special to me. I adored him when I was little. He adored me also.
He is the one who nicknamed me Skunk because I was so very spoiled by our father. Jimmy never resented that I got so much attention.
Jimmy got in trouble riding me on the handlebars of his bike down Boyd Ave, putting a three year old on the handlebars of a bike was not wise, but I remember that ride, and I loved every minute of it. Ma got calls from many people who spied us in our glorious ride down that hill. I squealed with delight. Ma met us at the door with her jaw set which I came to understand was that she was not pleased. She said, "What were you thinking? She could have been killed." Jimmy smiled his bright face lighting smile and said, "She loved it." Ma began to get that sparkle in her eyes. She still had it years later when she retold the tale.
She did not know that my three brothers taught me at three to climb trees which she soon found out because I could race to the top of a tree in minutes. She did not know until we were grown that my three brothers taught me to walk barefoot on the three inch wide ledge of our first floor roof. I could walk all around the house on that ledge. I was three when they taught me that trick. I remember how we were all talking years ago about my being able to walk on that ledge. Ma looked at my brothers and said you better be glad she survived. We all laughed and one of them reminded Ma that I was still with them.
Jimmy often would take me out to eat at Charley's a drive in restaurant in Waynesville, NC where we lived. I became the mascot of his bunch of high school friends. He would sometimes have his girlfriend along, and after I had a hot dog or ice cream they would take me home. I was still a preschooler back then. When he started dating Catherine (whom he would later marry), I was sitting between them and told my brother if he wanted to sit by Catherine, he had to give me a quarter. I was five years old at the time.
I got the quarter. Gary, my middle brother, told me he would not give me a quarter, and I stuck out my tongue at him and found him to be cheap.
But what was special was that Jimmy made me feel special. He made me feel wanted. I had been told by my Grannie, who lived with us seven months out of the year, that they wanted to give me away but parents have to keep their children. She also locked me under the stairwell whenever I was left in her care. When Grannie would stay with us, I lost my bedroom to limit her contact with me. I also did not eat at the dinner table. I ate in the kitchen at a little table there. Jimmy would often come and eat with me. I think it is also why he took me with him from time to time.
Da taught me to dance the waltz and the polka, but Jimmy taught me to jitterbug and rock and roll. Jimmy loved rock and roll. He loved Elvis, and wore his hair like Elvis. He asked Ma to make his jeans tighter. They were so tight he had trouble sitting down. Jimmy was a good dancer and went to all the dances. I have seen pictures of him with his friends. He would wear a white jacket with black pants and a white shirt and a black tie, and he was gorgeous.
Jimmy became a drum major in High School, and I remember him leading the band wearing the drum major suit with that tall hat and prancing back and forth across the main street of Waynesville. I wish we had a movie camera then because I would like to see him do that again. Gary was in that band. Joe and I stood watching them. Jimmy was the star.
When Jimmy was sixteen years old, He got a new winter coat. Ma loved to tell this story. Jimmy went to school with his new coat, but came home without it. Ma asked him where was his coat. Jimmy told her that there was a boy in his school who did not have a coat and that he gave the coat to him. Ma told him that he could have given his old coat. Jimmy responded, "I can wear my old coat still, and this boy may never have a chance to have a new coat again." That was in essence Jimmy. He gave so much more than he received. He trusted people and believed in people. He was kind and heard people when they needed to be heard.
Jimmy went to college but dropped out. He would later graduate, but he went into the Air Force. He did one tour of duty in the Vietnam War. He had a daughter then, and decided that he did not want his daughter to lose her father to that war. He did not sign up again.
I could talk about how he was well liked for he was. I could talk about how he was a hard worker which he was. I will instead talk about how when things were down Jimmy was always sure that he could overcome the problem and usually did.
Until Polycystic Kidney Disease hit him for that disease took his life. It has ravaged my family. He faced this illness with hope and strength of character. I never heard him complain. Jimmy suffered with grace more concerned about those he loved.
In those last months of his life, he had dialysis at midnight and he would call me almost every night. One night he talked about death being the perfect healing he was seeking. I felt my heart breaking as he talked. He talked about one more thing he would like to do, and it was to help young men in the inner city of Atlanta to give the chance that life had not given them. I told him it was a wonderful idea. I told he could do it. I told him that lie because I knew he lived with the reality that he was dying and I would not take his dreams from him. I wrote a poem that night which was about a month before he died.
Twenty years ago on this date, we all were waiting for Jimmy was growing weaker. He did not call me as often and I missed those calls. His oldest daughter Kelly and I talked about how we would handle things. She would call me and I would tell our mother that her first born was gone. I was at work that day, and I had told my supervisor that Jimmy was close to death. My phone rang as I was telling her, and it was Kelly and I said, "He is gone." I drove home and when Ma saw my face she began to cry. She asked, "Is...?" I told her as I had told her eleven years before that Da was gone that Jimmy was gone. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
It is difficult to believe that Jimmy has been gone twenty years. He was sixty years old just two months short of being sixty-one. I outlived him and my other two brothers for none of them made even sixty-four though Joe was only a day short of that age. I have missed them all over the years, but it is Jimmy who always makes me smile. He was the best of us. He was that light in our lives. I see him in each of his three children. I love and miss him still. I love and miss them all...Gary would die later that year. Ma and Joe would die ten years later... I miss them all, but I miss the joy that Jimmy brought to us all.
On the eve of my brother’s last days…
It was near midnight
When you called.
You spoke of things you wanted to do
Of etching your life line
Across the crystal hour glass of time.
I know this feeling-
Just not wanting to be forgotten,
A faded picture
Stuck way back in the closet.
I would rather there be no pictures
Than to be that.
I could hear your voice fading as it wandered
Telling me the last dream you
Were holding on to-
The one that will make that etching for you.
I could hear you struggle
To tell me that you knew
That it would be fine,
If only you could just do this,
Then death would be the healing
That you had been waiting for so long to come.
I listened a long time
To you speak of this dream.
I lied and said it was possible.
You live with reality;
I would not take your dreams.
As your voice became faint
And I could hear you struggle to breathe
I told you I must go
And I left you to spend the night alone
While the others slept-
To dream of what could be,
And not what will be.
I sat by my window,
Thinking of my little lie
And hoping that you will forgive me
When this struggle of yours is done.
Mary Elizabeth Todd
July 24, 1998
Watching the Lightning Bugs
Da punched holes in a jar lid,
He gave me the jar and said,
“Go catch you some magic.”
My big brothers helped me catch
Lightning bugs on a warm
June night.
Jimmy caught a couple
And said, “Skunk open the jar.”
Gary laughed and said,
“Skunk, you are so spoiled
You stink.”
I didn’t mind the name.
Joe taught me how to catch
My own little bugs.
After they had caught a few with me,
They left to go do
What big boys do. I sat on the step
Watching the lightning bugs.
Ma stepped out the door, saying,
“You need to come in.”
I begged,
“Just a minute or two more.”
I was watching the bugs
And their little lights.
Da came out and said,
“It is time to turn them loose.”
He picked me up, and
Sat me on his shoulders,
“Open the jar.”
I did and as I sat on his shoulders
The lightning bugs
Began to fly.
It was like having stars
Fly around me.
Da was right.
It was magic.
Mary Elizabeth Todd
July 31, 2018