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It is wonderful to see so many of our family in the same place for a reunion.
For me so many new faces of the children of cousins, now young adults as well as the faces of those whom I have known all my life.
In all these familiar faces I am reminded of all of the family that is not here today, whether for family reasons or those who have passed on. I am of course thinking of my brother David Wayne. I believe that covers everyone in the room, as we all knew him by both names. Alongside Dave I am reminded of Ginny, Delmer, Patricia, Gramma Grace and Al, and my own father John.
I remember the remarkable thing that happened to me at my father’s wake. I heard from people who had known him in periods of his life before I was even around. Willy told of his days when he was first meeting mom’s family as a young man. An early life that I was not privy to. It was a moment of congregation for me to hear from others about a life.
In 2011 Nate and I finished a project in Toronto and stopped in Youngstown and went to Karen’s and met up with all the Oddy’s. Deb was there and told me that she had mentioned to her great aunt that I was around. Her aunt thought the name was familiar, as she remembered a man of the same name from the uso dances, in the late forties, an excellent dancer she recalled, and the message was passed along.
Nate and I traveled thru Youngstown, Ransomville, North ridge and I saw all those old familiar places thru the eyes of Nate.
So I am here today to remember my brother in the ways that I knew him.
It has always been a wonder to me that I had a brother with platinum blond hair and blues eyes and fair skin. Playing little league in the Falls his nickname was Whitey, which in the 1950’s was more about Whitey Ford, the pitcher, and less about his heritage.
We grew up inside the parish of the local catholic church. Summers we were shipped off for weeks to work at church sites. Dave and I sent a month one summer at the our Lady of FatimaShrine in Lewiston, making rafts and floating around the rosary pool, while the place was under construction by the Barnabite Order. Another month another summer at the abbey of the Gethsemane, a Trappist monastery in Pifar, on the Geneseo River, working for the monks in their dairy, or lumping masonry for their chapel.
If we were not away working for god, we were up at the farm on river road. We explored the creek to the river, constantly on the move. Delmar’s job was to try and reign in our energy and as hard as he tried, I believe the results were mixed. No one had to worry too much about Terri or even Dave that much. Rick and I were a different story.
I remember notebooks full of statistics. Dave invented a dice game where he would create a league of teams, play a season of games, all based upon the dice roll. I never could get a handle on this one, but there were many notebooks.
I brought home snakes and frogs and tried to breed them in the house, with some really poor results.
Dave drove all of his siblings crazy destroying us the game Risk, to the point that we would be willing to play outdoors in the rain to avoid the next drubbing.
Dave goes off in 8th grade, to the Columban seminary in Dunkirk, on the shores of Lake Erie. We hadn’t moved to NY yet, and I recall the Sunday car rides to visit him. I believe Rick and I spent far more time trying to catch these huge carp along the lake then we did visiting Dave.
These visits come to a close as we move to NY. I enter high school and we have letters and calls, but I remember Dave coming home when I was a sophomore and he about to begin senior year. “What are you doing here” was answered by him saying he was done with the seminary and back for good.
Dave manages the next three years in NY at the College of Insurance, only to walk away with three credits to finish for a degree. Dave led the way in our not finishing college, with Kate and Jeff becoming the first to graduate, and Terri in 2015. Again, Rick and I were a different story.
We separate again as I graduate high school. I am off to attempt college. I remember Dave telling the local draft board, after he left college, that he is a newlywed and needs a week to settle his affairs. Next time I ask mom where Dave is, she replies, Frankfurt Germany. It seems Dave and Vera have relocated during the week of grace from the board. Which of course means that Rick and I can’t go near the board when called. Dave lived in plain sight of the American army in Europe, while I end up in a boatyard on Alameda Island , home port of the fifth fleet.
Dad goes three for three for sons who will not go to Nam and mom spends three years stonewalling inquiries about the whereabouts of her boys.
Dave and Vera return from Europe on a high lottery number, which we all received. Mom gets a single envelope telling her that her three sons are no longer of interest to the government.
Dave and Vera and Alex are next in Chelsea, I am upstate with Jainen and his mom and we are within a thousand miles of each other for a rare time in our lives and re connect.
Dave begins a 30 year career in a field that no one in his family can figure out. We never know what he actually does as he moves from New York to Seattle, London, Belgium,to San Francisco/Sonoma to Seattle to Portland and back to Seattle and Mercier Island with Diane. I move out to mv to meet Jei and begin my second family.
I have spent most of my life away from Dave. I would find him at Mom's, at Alex and Therese's wedding, where I meet Diane or at a reunion like this one.
What never changed though out the years of being together or apart was the fact that when we met up, it was always a continuation of the same thread.
Over the phone or in person, I would pick up exactly where we left off, listening to Dave's hilarious views and the latest in his chosen field that no one understood. My brother, the Underwriter, Author, a Renaissance man.
If a Canadian contractor was building a road in Panama, funded by a bank in Europe, using a crew of Caribbean laborers, then Dave was involved. Or perhaps a barge of Uncle Pete's petrochemicals had gone adrift in a storm off the west coast of Africa and a Dutch salvage tug had take the tow of a Liberian registered freighter, owned by a corporation based in Malta, call Dave.
The logo for my company, which came up in some obscure conversation about maritime law with Dave, has always been that we accept Lloyd's short form, "no cure, no pay", and Dave understood that everything undertaken was at risk and which Nate, one day at college, added to his shoulder blades.
I received the call to come see Dave last November, after he had received his diagnosis and the weekend that he decided to enter hospice and forego any further medical treatment. It was a tremendously courageous decision, and I arrived as he was actually processing the weight of his choice. Dave was weak from chemo, yet carried his decision with a dignity and grace that was his due. Risk management planning what he knew were end of life decisions, made with full awareness.
He allowed me into his condition, allowed me to help, and grinned a grin that I had seen all my life. My last week with Dave showed me the measure of a man’s life, and the ability to ask for help while retaining one’s self.
That he passed away at home in his own bed is a testimony to the care of Diane, Rick and Jesse who spent their time helping make Dave’s time comforting and full of love.
I am missing my brother, but am aware of the time we shared and the amazing lesson that he showed to me in the passing of a good man.
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