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Friday, February 24, 2006

Remembering Bennett

Ten years ago today, my brother Bennett died at age 47. He was eight years my senior.

What I recall about him:

  • watching www wrestling on TV
  • watching stock car racing on TV
  • eating 4 mayonnaise sandwiches after school
  • chasing ambulances, literally
  • loving to talk politics
  • wearing a black arm band at his college graduation in 1971 because of Vietnam
  • video taping the family at reunions for hours
  • his amazing photographs (that won many awards), which introduced me to the love of faraway places and travel
  • the beautiful land he bought in the country with plans to build a log home
  • planting 800 trees on that land and watching the deer eat many of them
  • watching a meteor shower together with our kids on his property
  • taking our parents on day trips around the state
  • driving truck or bus for years and years; man, he loved to drive
  • his wry sense of humor

Bennett, I miss you.

7 comments:

Ginnie Hart said...

You may have many more memories of Bennett than I do, Ruth, because you were around him longer after I left home. Didn't he have a telescope? Loved learning about the heavens, right?

Thanks for YOUR memories!

Anonymous said...

this made me cry mammas.

i miss him too.

i think i'll call you right now.

Ruth said...

Yes, he had a telescope and was an amateur astronomer. We should name a star for him!

Anonymous said...

i'll add one memory:

once, at Nelson and Peggie's Kalamazoo home, i was young and on the sidewalk on the other side of a row of hedges. i heard what i thought was my dad's voice, talking to someone else, on the house-side of the hedges. i looked through a hole, expecting to see my dad, but instead saw Uncle Ben. it really freaked me out to think that there was someone in the world who talked exactly like my father!

and that's a day i began to more fully understand the whole human family thing.

Ruth said...

Peter and Don have that a lot when Peter goes to Don's classroom.

Does anyone mistake your voice for your dad's or your brother's?

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed his soft voice. Couldn't you just sit and listen to him talk, it was like a lullaby. I would have liked to have been old enough to know him better and be his friend. I think I'll cry, too.

Shaista said...

I am so sorry to read this Ruthie, Ginnie and Lesley -all my love even if my condolences are several years late xxx