I sit in my tiny house 2000 miles from the river near which I spent my childhood. The San Joaquin silently glides past the marina out beyond the levee road, just a few yards away in the dark of the Delta night. Decades stretch between our bay and the wide Mississippi of my youth.
Two days ago, my brother Mark slipped from this world to whatever lies beyond us. We had not been close for years but as a child, I worshipped him. He primed me for that idolatry with his silent strength and his adolescent swagger. He paid me twenty-five cents to tell visitors that between us we knew everything — He knew everything, and I knew him. I’m not sure he ever satisfied the substantial debt for my repeated assertions but I didn’t care. I never minded anything he did back then.
Mark defended my honor in the neighborhood against what today would be considered impermissible bullying curtailed by teachers and parents. Bigger boys taunted me as I struggled to keep pace with their play. Mark and Kevin, two and four years older than I am, stepped in front of them with raised fists. They didn’t have to say anything; the set of their jaws gave sufficient warning. Transgressors backed from their glare as I cowered behind my big brothers, whimpering, fearful, and anxious. Mark’s clumsy assurances calmed me as the two of them guided me towards home.
We walked a couple of miles each way to our parish school. The shortcut took us over train tracks high on a ridge. One time, as the long low whistle sounded, I urged my useless legs over the rails. Mark scrambled backward, grabbed my shirt, and dragged me out of the path just as the locomotive reached us. We tumbled down the embankment, landing hard against the asphalt at the bottom of the hill. We lay there for a long time before Mark stood, pulled me to my feet, and dusted the dried leaves from my uniform. We never spoke. We never said a word, not then, not when we got home, not in all the years since that day. But I have not forgotten.
Eventually we grew apart, maybe for legitimate reasons, maybe just due to time and distance. Every family has its small clicks and so, too does ours. I have siblings with whom I am close and siblings with whom I have less contact. Over the years, I saw Mark at family events — funerals, weddings, the cousins reunion. He treated my son with kindness the time or two that they interacted in my son’s young adulthood. Mark and I exchanged only brief pleasantries at these gatherings and I made no effort to cultivate more. I left it alone, and so did he. I’m close to one sister, and my youngest brother that died in 1997, and my older brother Kevin. I had no bandwidth for breaking barriers, or scaling walls, or confronting old wounds over which scabs had only lightly formed.
But as far as I could tell from where I stood, he lived a good life. He had a partner that adored him and children who drew their life’s lessons from him. I saw him once with his granddaughter in a moment so tender that it left me breathless. I have a picture somewhere, and occasionally I come across it. If you turned a dictionary to “grandfather”, that photograph would be the perfect illustration. A little red-haired girl, sitting on her papa’s lap, safe, enraptured, completely at ease.
I represented Mark when he adopted his wife’s young son. We went to court in a large, comfortable room in St. Louis County, with the child sitting on my brother’s lap. As I went through the questions, I repeatedly referred to “the petitioner, Mark Louis Corley”. Each time, my nephew, not yet five, exclaimed, “That’s my Daddy!” By the time the judge granted the petition, even he had to wipe away tears. The court reporter asked if she could hug me after everyone had left and I stood by the counsel table, gathering my things. “In all my years here, I’ve never seen anything like this,” she admitted. “That’s quite a brother you’ve got there.” I closed my briefcase, smiled, and told her that I agreed.
My brother Mark lost a daughter, a brother, and his mother who presumably await him on the banks of the eternal river. I hope he can stroll without pain now, in the cool breezes of paradise, under a willow tree, his baby girl in his arms. I know his wife and the children still living — his sons, his daughter — and his grandchildren, as well as the rest of us, will mourn his passing. The end of a life of filled with love and passion can never be easily accepted. But if some other existence does follow this one, then I know for certain Mark’s will have music, and laughter, and the endless peace which he deserves. Nothing less would be fair. Nothing less would be heaven.
Fare thee well, my brother. Thank you for carrying me through the difficult days of our childhood, and for being a part of what good I took from those troubled times. Give my love to Hot Lips Mama and to your friend and mine, Stevie Pat. Rest easy, now.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
The Missouri Mugwump®
