About Edwin

Written on September 18, 2010

The report of my cancer sounds as if I need of another stem cell transplant. It could happen as early as next month. This will be three years since my previous transplant procedure. The difference in the three years is that I was in good shape. I had been playing racquetball three days a week for twenty years. Now I can hardly walk and as my brother, Edwin would say, that scares the “flitter out of me”

Let me tell you about my brother. When people say “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out”... Edwin was a rocket scientist with NASA in Huntsville, Alabama. He was featured in Popular Mechanics (August 1960) when he was twenty-one. He worked on Skylab, designing the control panel. Later he was responsible for the crew that would retrieve the booster rockets after they fell into the Atlantic.

Edwin and I slept in the same double bed until the night before his marriage to Marguerite. Just days before his death, I spoke with Edwin and reminded him of the days when the temperature in north Alabama had dropped below freezing. We would heat our pillows on the coal stove and run to the bed and stick our feet inside. In the hot August days, we would push our bed in front of the window and try to catch a breeze. I can still remember waking up with a screen design on my forehead. Edwin would say to each memory,  “I remember.”

We always thought we could count to a million. We counted to ourselves and when we would reach 100, we would raise a hand. He would say,  “I remember.” Actually I got tired of this game and I would raise my hand even though I wasn’t counting.
Our folks took resting on the Sabbath seriously. Edwin and I would bring our little Philco to bed and listen to Fibber McGee and Molly, Amos and Andy, and The Shadow. When it was time for Jack Benny to come on, it was time to get ready for Sunday evening church.

On April 2, 2006, my brother died. He was 67 years plus 18 days. If I have calculated it correctly, that is how long I have lived on this Earth.