Note: The following is Part 4 of a 4 part series written especially for my close family.  It is pretty personal stuff, but, in retrospect, eminently shareable with this readership family. 

Flash back now to when Jim was born:

Mom and Dad expected a girl.  A girl didn’t arrive.  Instead, the boy.  They had no name in mind.  Dad’s name was Lyman Link.  I’ve always loved the name Lyman Link, possibly because I’ve always loved my dad.  But I would never name my son, “Lyman”.  It’s probably just too old-fashioned.  But, as it turned out, that’s just what they did.  Lyman Charles Link.  And Jim was Lyman for a couple of years.  Trouble was, once Jim began to talk he couldn’t say “Lyman” and it always came out “Imie” with a long “I” which sounded way too much like Hymie to my dad.  So around the age of 3, Mom and Dad decided to give him my dad’s step-father’s name, “James”.

I don’t remember anyone ever calling him “James” either.  It was always “Jim”.  Occasionally “Jimmie” when younger.

Just thought I’d get this down for posterity’s sake.

Jim taught me how to ride a bike.  He taught me how to shoot a basketball.  He taught me how to drive a car and how to use a stick shift even though, in the process, I ground the gears of his Thunderbird to dust.  We played the chopsticks duet on the piano endlessly – he playing the bottom part while I improvised on top.  He taught me his three favorite pick-up lines when my mind turned to girls.  None of them ever worked, but they gave me the confidence to try.

He taught me to cuss – sarcastically correcting me one day when he rolled me out of our backyard hammock and I yelled, “Oh shet!”  He said, “It’s not ‘shet’, stupid, it’s SH*T!”  He told me about the birds and bees long before Dad ever got around to it.  He taught me how to hold a bat, to throw a ball, to leap tall buildings at a single bound …

In High School I played defensive safety and split end on an undefeated and unscored-upon football team.  In our last game of the season he came down from his college to see if we would break all the records, remain unbeaten and unscored-upon.  He had one of those voices that was high and edgy and could break glass and he stood on the sideline and yelled his head off the whole game excitedly while I scored three touchdowns and we won 35-0.  I’ve never had a prouder day in my life with my big brother cheering me on.  To this day I’ve got tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat as I write this just remembering the time as if it were yesterday.  The fact that Jim was there turned out to be more important to me than the touchdowns, the records and the victories.

I did him proud – and that meant the world to me.

There are a thousand other stories.  These are just a few.  A lifetime of brotherhood – lived and demonstrated.

Cindy, Jim’s eldest daughter, upon reading Parts 1-3 of this series, asked me to tell yet another story – the one about peas up the nose.  So here I shall get that one down on paper also for posterity.  Brothers always like to dare one another to do things.  I think it comes with the package.  It’s just in their genes.  Jim and I were no different.  In fact, we had a favorite phrase that we would always say.  “I’d like ta see ya’ do it!”  It fell out of our mouths just as easily and naturally as “Good morning” or “Good night.”

The setting for this particular “I’d like ta see ya’ do it!” was Jim’s Birthday dinner with the family gathered around the dining room table waiting excitedly for the cake and candles to be brought from the kitchen by Mom.  Those were the days when you had to eat every morsel on your plate before you got dessert.  It was just an American tradition as I grew up.  If you didn’t finish your vegetables, you sat there lonely at the table long after everyone had left, staring at those cold god-awful vegetables on your plate.

After this particular meal the remaining vegetables on my plate were peas.  My dad, knowing that I would be missing out on the Birthday cake warned me, “Pete, if you don’t eat your peas right now I’m gonna stuff ‘em up your nose.”  Before I could think, before I could halt the screeching freight train of habit, the words fell out of my mouth.

“I’d like ta see ya’ do it!”

Of course Jim, sitting across the table from me chimed in immediately, “Yeah, I’d like to see ya’ do it!”  In an instant Dad was on his feet.  Jim rushed around the table to the other side of me and while he held my head in a form of head-lock, Dad stuffed two large peas up my nose – one up each nostril.  At that same moment Mom entered the room singing Happy Birthday to Jim with the cake and burning candles.  I sang along as best I could in my new-found nasality.

It was probably Jim’s most memorable moment from that birthday.  It was a story that we had to tell his kids over and over again as they were growing up.  So this one’s for Cindy, now in her forties – still wishing to hear the story just one more time.

I’ve spent the last 4 days writing this tribute, this memorial to Jim.  In those four days I’ve begun to accept his passing as a reality.  I still turn corners and it hits me hard, but no longer brings me to tears – just pangs, pangs of grief, I suppose.  Now when people ask me about him I can explain a few things without falling apart.  I almost feel bad to be so normal, but in my saner moments I’ve come to understand that he’s still with me even though he’s moved on.  He still is, even though I can’t really experience him with my five physical senses, he still lives in my heart and soul and very probably somewhere else in yet another form that I do not yet understand.

I will say this however – that the writing of this memoir has helped me through this transition immeasurably.  Even though he left us, I’ve spent hours each day since his parting remembering and experiencing him, the best of times, the most memorable of times and the best of Jim.  Yes, the writing has been cathartic, but the whole experience has been unforgettable because it has burned these treasured moments into my mind and into my own life in bronze and gold.

Other Articles relating to Jim:

The Spirit Of Christmas – Part 1

The Spirit Of Christmas – Part 2

The Spirit Of Christmas – Part 3

The Spirit Of Christmas – Part 4

The Spirit Of Christmas – Part 5

Heaven

World Of Illusion

I’m Alive

Lyman At War

Lyman At War – Part 2

Why We Are Here

Ain’t Life Grand

Thoughts On Thinking or Thinking Makes It So

You Must Remember This

When Things Go Wrong

These Bodies

Nothing

Straight “A”s

My Body

And Lastly: The Goin’ Home Digi-Book