Healing

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I Thought You Knew
© 2002 By Dan Blankenship




SIDS stands for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. But one summer day, to a fourteen-year-old boy in Priceville, Alabama, it became an acronym for Sudden Information of Deceased Syndrome. It was on that day - back in 1981 - that I first realized how distant I was from my parents. And I am not talking about the fact that they were back home in Indiana.


Every summer break from the Lake Central School Corporation, I visited my aunt and uncle’s home in Alabama. It was a nice place to visit, even if I was known as “The Yankee.” I usually stayed for thirty days or more - living as if my cousins, Johnny and Rusty, were just my older brothers.


Johnny was the oldest and wisest. He had his heart set on success. As I had been told, he would bring his teachers flowers, candy, and cards on a weekly basis, perform assignments that were never given, and ask a multitude of questions to make the teachers feel needed. Today he is a computer architect for NASA. I doubt he sends any thank you letters to the public servants who sent him there. They served their purpose.


Rusty was closer to my age, mental capabilities, and general interest. I don’t think our teachers endeared us. Tolerate was a better word. I remember so much of the things Rusty and I used to do, it is like a mental scrapbook – page numbers and all. I remember catching June-bugs and tying thread to their legs, leaving them flying in circles for hours. I remember mason jars full of lightning-bugs, fields turned into baseball diamonds, go carts made with spare parts, all day BB-gun hunting trips that ended with a lot crows and squirrels grazed but very much alive, and quick-decision-great-ideas that always left us in trouble with “ma’ and “pa”. They called us Gomer Pyle and Barney Fife because of our incredible ability to always find trouble.


It was the walk Rusty and I took through Shoal Creek Baptist Cemetery that led to this pen-to-paper venture. The church cemetery is just outside of Priceville’s boundaries, in Shoal Creek Township, and is a place I have been to quite a bit since my father is now buried there. But on this day, I was not very familiar with the tenants.


As Rusty and I made our way through the graveyard we read many of the names, calculated the ages, and studied the different quotes and Psalms written upon the glittering headstones. When I noticed a tombstone which read “Timothy Lee Blankenship – Born February 2nd – Died February 4th – 1957”, I nonchalantly asked Rusty if he knew whose kin this was. The look of shock on his face announced I should already have that information.


“Well?” I beckoned.


“Th…that’s your brother. I mean… was your brother.”


I stared at the tombstone. I know sometimes the human brain, which doctors tell us is a thousand times faster than the fastest computer, can freeze up just like my home PC. I remember this as one such moment. After the initial embarrassment, I was not sure what to feel. I could not understand why my parents had not told me about “my brother”. But was he my brother, even being dead? Of course he was, right? I was stunned by such questions. There was such a doubt in what to feel that I was waiting for Rusty to say he was kidding. He never did. It was the one time I remember Rusty looking at me with sympathy.


Before I ever approached my parents about Timothy, I thought about all the things Timothy could have been for me. He could have taught me how to play baseball. Something my dad was usually too busy to do. He could have helped me with my homework. Something mom did not have time to do – after all Jeopardy was on, followed by Family Feud, Dallas, and Flamingo Road. Maybe that was why mom never had time to tell me I had a brother! I have to admit some anger had crept up.


I wondered what Timothy would have looked like. Would he have been tall? Would he have been married by the time I had entered high school? I tried to imagine what job he would be doing if he were still alive. I had two older sisters, but I’m sure he and I would have had a much different relationship.


I've often wondered, even to this day, whether or not such thoughts are worth the emotion they bring. I even questioned my ability to ask my mother about my brother. But I did ask her.


“I thought you knew,” she responded.


“I think I would remember if you told me I had a brother,” I responded, rather sarcastically.


As she explained the details of Timothy’s short life back in 1957, I respectfully listened to every word. It was a sad story of a much-awaited-child, who died in the crib without warning. Most of my anger had left, but the thoughts of what might have been, have never left.


Years later, I put two and two together. I believe the reason my parents let me spend my summer vacations in Alabama with Rusty was to – in some small way – experience the friendship I had lost when Timothy became a victim of SIDS. I still wonder if they did it subconsciously though, as my “Yankee to the South” trips had never been given a purpose. Maybe “Ma” thought I knew that too. My faith has allowed me to forgive my mother and father for not telling me about my brother. And it has allowed me a glimpse into the pain they must have felt at the loss of their wonderful son.

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