My Big Brother

I recently had the honor of speaking at my big brother's memorial service:

Winnie & Sons- Whitney's Wedding 

I got married in December of 2020 and my new wife was crazy enough to let me plan the wedding and our travels afterward. I wanted her to meet my family and so we headed to Pampa to knock out several introductions in one trip. Janie was, of course, anxious about meeting everyone but I assured her that my siblings were the best people on earth and she needn't be worried. It's been a little over a year now. I think she's beginning to understand what they all mean to me and how important they have been in my life.

A secondary reason for making the trip was to check in on Bill. He had recently been through some serious medical adventures and I wanted to see him, to check in. We've never been a family where everyone is in the middle of everyone else's business, but I wanted him to know we would be there if needed. He was my big brother, the first person I ever looked up to, the most reliable, stand-up person I have ever known. I wanted him to know I learned and appreciated the big brother lessons he taught.

My earliest memory of Billy is when I was probably 5 years old and sharing a bedroom with him on Christy Street. We had bunk beds and as little brother I had the top bunk. He was 11 years older than me and had all these exotic, grown up things like aftershave, a billfold, a record player, and various other things that were "look but don't touch" items. At bedtime he would stack albums on the record player ... Bobby Vinton, Roger Miller, The Four Seasons, Bobby Vee, Johnny Horton ... and let them play out. Billy, never sang along. He would turn on his bottom bunk reading light, eat his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and kick the bottom of my mattress if I was being fidgety or talking too much. He'd kick, the mattress would bounce up and I'd hear "Go to sleep, Deck."

As a kid, nothing was a bigger pleasure than to hang out with Billy. I got to tag along on a fishing trip out to some pond with Billy and his friend Monty Gordon. He saved me one day at the City Pool when I accidentally jumped in the deep end of the pool and panicked. We rode horses together at Grandma Turner's when my uncles would let us, and did some quail and dove hunting, too. He took Loretta and Nelda and me camping at Greenbelt Lake one summer. We were staying in a pop-up camper and a thunderstorm blew through one night. I don't think Bill slept a wink worried about us all. I think it was Loretta that got caught with a fish hook on that trip. Bill took care of that, too. For my 13th birthday he surprised me with a trip to Amarillo to see the dirt track races, just him and me. We drove in a red Chevy Impala that threw a fan belt on the way home. Of course, there were no cell phones and it was late. Bill hitchhiked to Panhandle, found a fan belt at the truck stop there, hitched back and fixed it, in the dark, with a screw driver and a crescent wrench.

Billy played basketball for the Pampa Harvesters, quite the bragging point at the time for a younger brother, even if he wasn't a starter. Mom used to take me to the games, though we always arrived after half-time when you could get in free. She said not to tell him we came to the game because it made him nervous, but he knew. After the games we would go to the A&W drive-in where I would get one of those small mugs of root beer and maybe a hot Dr. Pepper. Billy would ask me when he got home if I enjoyed my root beer.

Everyone in our family is smart, in one way or another, but Bill may have been the smartest of us all. When we added on to the Christy Street house the roof in the addition leaked like a sieve. We couldn't really afford to have it done by professionals so Mom pestered Billy until he came up with a plan to put a proper slope on it and re-roof it. I must've spent a week on that roof helping Bill and learned a lot, but was mainly just amazed at his retro-fit rafter design and calculations. Mom always depended on Bill, and he always delivered, though typically on his own time and terms.

As I mentioned, Billy was 11 years older and so I got to sit on the sidelines and watch him go through a lot of tough times. At some point, after he had been out on his own for several years with a wife and kids, he ended up back home, sharing a bunk bed with me again. This was at a time when divorce was still very much a "What will the neighbors think!" sort of thing. He was always quiet, but was especially so then. I never heard him complain or say an unkind word about anyone. I saw him consistently work hard and try to do the right thing. For a period of time he worked at a hog farm and I marveled at how he could get up and go to that stinky, hard job without complaint, but he did, all while managing the demands and responsibilities of that difficult time. I learned a lot of lessons from Billy that he should have never had to teach me, but I appreciated them all. He was the best teacher I could have asked for.

As I started out on my own, with life and loves and the things that happen, my relationship with Bill changed. We'd work on home projects when visiting each other. He'd be silly Uncle Billy with my kid, and I'd be mean Uncle Dexter with his. We played golf. We built buildings. We made each other and everyone else laugh at family gatherings. I felt honored and lucky to have such a great big brother as a friend. 

A favorite tactic of Mom's would be to have Billy pitch her ideas to me when she thought she knew best or when she wanted some favor. She knew I was more likely to listen to Bill. What she didn't know was that when he talked to me about them he always said "Your Mom says," and he would finish with his opinion on the matter. Once Mom was dead set on me spending a week of vacation building a new corral fence for her horses. Bill told me, "Your Mom says she needs a new fence, but she really just needs that corral cleaned out and an electric fence around the top to keep the horses from chewing on it." so that's what I did.

It is impossible to sum up any life with a few short stories and observations. I know I'm biased, and just because he was my brother doesn't mean I know everything about him, but I can tell you this. He was a man of faith, in word and in deed. He was honest, in relationships and in business. He was sincere in his laughter and his grief. He acted out of love. My big brother Billy did his level best to be a blessing to everyone he had a relationship with at home, at work, at church, in the community. He was my hero as a kid, and my role model as an adult. None of us are perfect, but I can honestly say that in the 60+ years he was my big brother, he never let me down. He was never anything but caring and kind and helpful to me. If it was fan belts or fish hooks or fences, any of the daily chores and challenges of life, I could always count on Billy. If it was faith or family or forgiveness, the bigger responsibilities and questions of life, I could always look to Bill as a compass because I knew he would choose the right path, even if it wasn't the easiest.

To me, my brothers and sisters are the best people on earth. I love them all for who they are and I know they love, and tolerate, me. I miss my big sister Jennifer and I will miss my only big brother Billy. I could sure use his help these days, and he'd probably be eager to give it. I'll have to settle for remembering the love and the lessons. Those will be with me always. 

I love you, Billy.

And then there were five .... and for some reason, I feel diminished. Well loved and blessed! But somehow less.