It started with a phone call. Phone calls in and of themselves aren’t unusual. But one from biggest brother is. He usually doesn’t call anybody.
As it was, my phone rang. He inquired if I had wished big brother No. 2 a happy birthday yet that day.
“No,” I said. “His birthday is tomorrow. Or maybe the day after. Don’t think it’s today.”
Big brother 1 was quite sure brother 2’s birthday was this day. You kind of hope he would know. He was the only one of us around for the event, even if he was only 1 at the time himself. He was so sure he had sent a happy birthday email to brother 2 already.
I figured I’d make sure of this. So I sent a text to sister No. 2, the keeper of all things family history and pictures. She stays in touch with folks the rest of us don’t remember. There are people on Mom and Dad’s Christmas card list I didn’t know anything about, but baby sister does and somehow knows where they are and what they are doing.
But I didn’t get an answer.
On to brother No. 4. A text to him asking when brother No. 2’s birthday is.
He went right to the source — brother No. 2’s driver’s license.
His birthday was not today. It was, in fact, in two days.
I called biggest brother. “It’s not today,” I told him. “It’s not even tomorrow. It’s the day after tomorrow. Eh, at least you got the happy birthday out of the way.”
In mom’s old datebook, in her perfect cursive handwriting, she had all the birthdays written down. When there are seven of you, committing that many days to memory is no easy chore.
Mom and Dad sent Christmas cards to other relatives. I don’t recall them sending a birthday card to anybody, unless it was to her mother. Mom was one of five kids. Dad was one of 10. No way they were sending that many birthday cards, though they might have to mom’s siblings. Dad’s brothers and sisters?
For years, I thought Dad had two sisters. When we’d go to the mall in Savannah on one of those rare occasions and my sisters would scamper off to buy something, the old man would look at me and go, “your two sistas. Like my two sistas. Miggy and Deresa.” Which was Charlestown-ese for Mickey and Theresa.
One problem. Dad had three sisters. There was an Aunt Margaret.
I met her at Uncle Lawrie’s (that’s short for Lawrence) funeral. I was about 17. She came up to me and my mother at the cemetery. My mother went, “This is your Aunt Margaret.”
I said hello and it was a pleasure to meet her, in spite of the circumstances. After Margaret left, I turned to my mother. “I got an Aunt Margaret? Since when?” “Since forever. Now shut up,” came the reply.
The old man had six brothers who made it to adulthood — Lawrie (short for Lawrence), James, the twins Bob and Ray (also the name of dad’s favorite comedy duo), Donald and Joe. Met Lawrie. Met Joe. We were at Uncle Joe’s one day and supper was ready and I, at age 7 then, was dispatched to tell the old man. I go down to Uncle Joe’s basement where I thought he was asleep in a recliner, with the TV on — which wasn’t that unusual, either.
I looked more closely. No, that’s not the old man. That’s Joe. I said to myself, (words you would never say in church), they do look alike. They’re brothers, all right. And they all looked alike. Got a picture of a couple of them from their Knights of Columbus days. They look like Corleone family button men.
Bob came out to visit when I was a junior in high school. He had a tremendous sense of humor. He also survived some of the worst fighting ever in American military history. He was one of the Chosin Few, the Marines who were attacked by, surrounded by and then fought through an overwhelming Chinese force in North Korea. Didn’t meet Raymond or Donald or James. May have met Mickey and Theresa when I was a toddler.
Of the folks’ brothers and sisters, only one is still around, my mother’s only sister. Probably need to wish her a happy birthday when that time comes around.
As it is, I think I pretty much know the birthdays of my siblings. At least I have a few more months before the next one, just in case I need someone to sneak a peek at one of their driver’s licenses.