Sadly, my brother Will died this week. From this point on, I guess I can no longer say I am chasing him. He was born seven years before me, and when Mom had me, I finally filled the void left by our older brother Joe. I’m sure by the time I was old enough to talk, he didn’t want any part of me. My mother probably enslaved him to watch me, feed me, change me, and whatever else a mother would use her oldest child to do for her. That might explain why he became very interested in school and in helping the nuns after school, or any activity that would excuse him from being home.
My recollections of Will, or Villy as Mom called him, are vague, beginning in grammar school. Our bonding time during those years was limited, and my recollections of him pushing me around the block in a buggy are nil. The gap between us seemed to stretch, growing longer and longer. When I started first grade, he was in seventh grade. When I reached eighth grade, he had finished Leo High School, the University of Illinois, and was in the army and stationed in Germany. I finally remember writing him letters when he was in Germany.
I finally finished college in 1961. By that time, Will was married, working, and raising a family. Our time together was limited to meeting at our parents’ house for birthdays and holidays. The gap between us was huge, but by then, people were calling him Bill rather than Will.
Somewhere around 1969, the gap closed. I had begun working at Panduit, and Bill was searching for a new job. At a family party, I told him to try at Panduit. Unbeknownst to me, he did. Soon after, I was sharing the lunch table with Roy Moody, VP of Engineering. I thought it strange that he wanted to know about Bill. Three weeks later, I met Bill in the hallway at Panduit. We finally caught up to each other. Bill and I worked in separate departments, but we saw each other and spoke almost daily for the next 35 years.
Filed under: Aging, Biography, family | Tagged: family, siblings | 5 Comments »
