Today is my mother’s birthday; she is 76.  She gave birth to eleven children the old-fashioned way – one at a time.  She conceived the old-fashioned way too, regular sex and Catholicism being strong contributing factors.  She gave birth to me first, when she was 20; she gave birth to my brother David last, when she was 37.  A number of my high school boyfriends thought that she was hot and that was way before it ever became a pop culture concept.  My Mom was warm and easy to be around, her figure, in between pregnancies was good enough to wear my clothes (which she did on occasion and it was for reasons of scarcity and lack of income rather than any attempt to make a statement) and she was pretty and attractive without really trying.  I use the past tense here in reference to a past time.  My mother is still with us and still in possession of such attributes.

Last year’s birthday was significant because it was the three quarter century mark and all of her children made it home to celebrate together.  This year’s birthday is significant because my brother Timmy, her first born son, did not make it through the year.

Let me just paint some background here by saying that of the eleven siblings, only three live out of state; the rest live within a fifty mile radius of the childhood home on South Church Street in Elkhorn, Wisconsin.  While some families stay in contact mainly through Christmas cards and phone calls as everyone moves on with their own lives, we are one of those families that gather en masse every Thanksgiving and Christmas and on several other times during the year for any one of the sundry life marker occasions (graduation, weddings, showers, significant decade birthdays etc).  Of course we do not always have a full quorum on such occasions, but certainly a comfortable majority.  In any given year, each of the “out-of-staters” makes it home for at least one or more of the gatherings.  My point is that we are used to seeing each other a fair amount; you might say that we take it for granted.  And not to get all Kennedy-esque here, but with 25 grandchildren (26 counting my stepson), 9 great grandchildren, along with the original 11 and spouses, we have our fair share of competitive Thanksgiving Turkey Bowls, Christmas Eve Suicide Hill Sledding Runs, horseshoe, volleyball, casino, bocci ball, and foosball tournaments, as well as the highly critical, “best dressed this time” and “still lookin’ good” contests.  These are raucous gatherings.

As I was saying previously, last year’s birthday party for my Mom was one of the times in recent years when all 11 siblings were present and accounted for at the same time.  We decided to take a picture of all of us lined up in birth order.  This had been attempted only once before and that was nearly 30 years ago.  We are not an orderly bunch.  It was quite a show for those grandchildren present to watch their parents descend into sibling hierarchy and squibble and squawk about who goes where (some actually tried to change the birth order in an attempt to conceal their real age and some of us are actually “senior moment” enough that they almost got away with it).  Then we had to decide which shoulders to turn out in order to favor the majority of “best sides”.  And God Bless my brother-in-law, Ron for capturing the photo.

Tonight when we gather, the three out-of-staters won’t be with us.  It will be a quieter “those who can make it” time.  And Tim won’t be there.  And we’ll all notice it, because Tim was an in-stater and Tim rarely missed.  I mean, honestly, sometimes it does get a bit much.  There have been years when there were four separate high school graduation parties, but as I said, everyone understands that not everyone can make every one all the time and yet we all try to make as many as we can and Tim just rarely missed.

Now I know that life is death and death is life.  I know that everyone loses someone dear to them.  We lost our Dad 28 years ago and even though I knew it was coming for 5 years because he had lung cancer, when it happened, I still felt sucker punched.  Losing a sibling is a whole other level, for me though.  I have been one of eleven since I was 17 and now I’m not.  It’s been over two months; we had Christmas and it was good.  Yet I can’t believe that tonight Tim’s not going to throw one arm around me when he sees me, holding a beer in his other hand and say “Hi ya Sis!” like I just made his day by showing up.  I am going to be thinking about how we lined up as eleven last year and never will again and I am just going to fuckin’ miss him, that’s all.

3/2/09

I'm adding this link to my personal blog for anyone who would be interested in reading my outpouring in the week after Tim's death.

Thanks ahead of time.  It's always comforting when someone honors our grief by "listening" to us speak of it.

http://midriffmuse.com/2008/12/15/we-lost-one/