Bob

I wrote this piece a couple of months ago, but hesitated to publish it.  I'm not sure why.  Bob was more than a brother-in-law to me...he was my sibling.  I spent so few years in my family before he became a part, that I could know him as nothing else - a brother.  I really miss him now.  I missed him at Christmas when his family came from Texas and he wasn't here, too.  It was my purpose to tell his story from my view.  I probably didn't do him justice and might have a poor memory about some of the details (but I was very young when he entered into my life).  Anyway - it is meant to be a written reflection of an empty space that is around our table, as well as a celebration honoring the life of one that I loved.


When I was six years old, I peeked out of the front window when my oldest sister's date brought her home and watched him kiss her goodnight.  I proceeded to run through the house shouting with a sing-song rhythm, "Bob kissed Alice, Bod kissed Alice..."  That is my first memory of him - Robert Charles Jones, my brother-in-law.  And he never let me forget it!

When I was nine years old, Bob became a part of my family.  He faced challenges with us almost immediately.  Bob was an only child of privilege whose parents had grown up as only children, for the most part.  It must have been quite a shock to his system to be integrated into large middle income family life, such as he found in us.  The years proved only the best and we learned to embrace each other in love.

Bob's parents, whom we quickly learned to love as well, were so very different to our family.  His dad, who was known as Abie, was orphaned at an early age and lived with extended family after the death of his parents.  I think he actually had a sibling or two, but the death separated them.  His relationship with them, for the most part, was nonexistent.  He was a business man who eventually owned his own pharmacy, however never attended pharmacy school.  He was successful and provided well for his small family.  He was quite rotund and smoked a cigar.  He was actually very personable and kind.  During the 1960's there was still an active local KKK in our small town.  It was said that he identified men by the shoes they were wearing under their sheets and "outed" them by saying hello to them, using their name.  I remember him as being a jolly man.  Kack, Bob's mother, was an intriguing person, too.  Her mother, Mrs. Crutchfield, lived on Court Street in a very large, old house.  She was very lonely in her reclining years and didn't have a lot of contact with people.  She and Kack had a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship.  Mrs. Crutchfield would call my mother weekly and mom would spend time on the phone with her.  She was an eccentric old woman who just needed a friend and my mother was willing to fill some time for her on the phone.  I think Kack really did appreciate mom befriending her mother in this way.  Kack was a socialite.  She and her friends spent time together doing such things as playing cards, hosting social gatherings, and driving charitable events.  Her home was very well appointed and her demeanor was one of propriety.  I'm sure she was somewhat overwhelmed by our lack of finese and our casual lifestyle, but if so, we never knew it.  We found her to be a gracious and kind woman.  Kack learned to love us and we loved her in return.  In her last years, she spend Christmas with us, and we were so happy to have her around our Christmas tree.  She was family.

Bob brought a very new element into our family when he married my sister.  He was definitely a beloved family character.  He was handsome and dashing.  He drove a baby blue convertible.  He was a swimmer and served as a life guard at our local pool.  He was a Ham radio operator.  He loved anything electronic.  He was very intelligent and very well spoken.  Manners and appearances were very important to him.  He had very specific preferences and when he found something that he liked, he was loyal to the product, the style, or the idea from that point on.  I would not call him flexible and change was slow, but he did enjoy new innovations.  Family became his number one priority.  He loved deeply and passionately.  He strived to take care of his family by providing well for them.  He worked hard and many hours.  His jobs were stressful which took somewhat of a toll on him.  He became somewhat reclusive and retreated to his Ham radio "shack" often at the end of the day.  When guests were in his home, however, he enjoyed bringing them into this room he called his "shack" and sharing his knowledge and expertise as a Ham radio operator.  He would invite guests to speak to someone on the other side of the world, which at that time was quite a novelty.  Everything in his shack was meticulously maintained.  Having learned morris code as a part of his radio licensing, he was interested in objects of communication and began a collection of old teletype machines used by the railroads.  In his early years, Bob was a scuba diver.  As his children were born, he saw it as something that was too dangerous and costly to pursue, but in his later years he took up the hobby once again.  He and Alice traveled the world together, snorkeling and diving.  He also prided himself on his underwater photography skills and captured under water scenes that he loved to share.  Photography was another thing that was not a big part of our family until Bob showed up at our family functions with the latest and newest camera.  He took 8mm film at our family gatherings and we only have Christmas photos due to his self-appointment as family photographer.

Bob had his own style in which he comfortably lived - really his entire life.  He had a pair of penny loafer shoes that he had repeatedly resoled over the years.  On a casual day he could be seen in his high waisted Levi jeans with his blue jean jacket.  As soon as he could, after getting home from work, he would take off his daily worn, white button-up dress shirt and dark pants and put on his cover-all jump suit.  I don't know how many of these he actually owned, but I know that when he wore them, he was relaxing fully.  This is the way you would find him as he puttered around the house.

Electronics was a very important part of Bob's life.  He was geared for tinkering and figuring out how things worked.  Although he didn't love school, he had a brilliant mind and his experience carried him far in the electronic world as a career.  My mom had an old sewing machine.  She spent many hours sewing her three girls and herself a wardrobe.  Bob kept it running for her.  He would oil and wire and maintain it when he would visit.  I remember as a young child walking into the bathroom at their house.  Forget the "Clapper"!  Bob had the light wired to automatically come on when you passed through the door.  He had many little gadgets set up to make life easier in a quirky kind of way.  His really big project was building a Ham radio tower which held an antenna  in their back yard.  It was the tallest object for miles around.  He was often teased about airplanes having to be re-routed because of it's height.  He was fascinated by the digital world when technology changed so much of what we do.  He was never stuck, but was progressive in his field.

Bob was a "foodie".  He loved food.  But he had his own specific ideas of what was good.  He would stuff himself with things that he really liked, and then be sick from eating too much of a good thing.  He loved his Diet Cokes and chocolate chip cookies.  Mom would always make him banana cream pie - without the bananas - his favorite.  No one else ever got a even a small slice of his pie.  When I was visiting once, he made baked beans.  He wanted to teach me how to make them like he did.  He took a large can of pork-n-beans and rinsed them.  He added ketchup and a whole box of brown sugar to them.  That was about it.  He made candied baked beans - which were good, if you like a sugar rush!

Bob's "justice button" was pretty hot.  He was a man of integrity and he expected no less from everyone else.  He expected to get what he paid for.  He might carry an empty can of coke around for weeks which had come out of the machine that way, until he discovered a way to return it and get his money back.  Once I was with him when he pulled into a gas station and filled up with gas.  I was mortified when he drove off without paying and said to the attendant, "I'll pay for the gas when you fix my car!" When he saw the shock and awe on my face, it humored him and he explained that he had asked them to fix a problem but it had not really been fixed.  I kept looking around for the police to catch up with us. I didn't know for a long time that the station was one where he traded consistently and they knew him well.

Safety was of utmost importance to Bob.  A few years ago he told me about his experiences as a life guard and saving the life of a child who was drowning.  He considered the job to be of utmost importance and took it very seriously.  He went on to explain to me how you always look for the person who isn't saying anything - the one who is silently drowning.  He said that a drowning person slips away instead of flailing their arms and screaming.  He wanted me to be sure and know what to look for while watching my grandchildren swim.  One of the last things he took care of for us was to install new smoke detectors, a couple of door bells and make sure our electric box was brought up to code.

His family was the most important thing to him.  He sat me down once when I was a teenager and made sure that I understood how much he loved my sister.  I never did really know why we had that particular conversation, but it always stuck with me.  He was so proud of his boys and their families.  He knew he had passed the torch well.  He made every effort to let us all know how much he loved us.  Bob's favorite years were spent as a grandfather to his four grandchildren.  There was really nothing he wouldn't do for them.  They were his pride and joy and he loved all of his time with them whether joking with them, watching plays they created, going to baseball or soccer games, or fishing.
His time was full and well spent with them.

Bob appointed himself personal guardian over Mom during the last weeks and days of Dad's life.  The rest of us were busy taking care of Dad's needs and sitting with him at the hospital.  Bob took on the responsibility of seeing that Mom had a driver and company during those difficult days.  His help with her freed us, his children, up to care for him and ourselves more effectively.  He would have had it no other way.

During those weeks, he also became our champion - or rather, God's champion.  He took it upon himself to speak to people that he encountered while out and about in Batesville, about Compass Church.  He would boldly ask people if they went to church anywhere and then proceed to tell them about Compass.  He even had occasion to defend Compass a time or two, which he did unashamedly. Compass Church was really out of Bob's comfort zone, having been raised by a father who was Church of Christ and a mother who was Southern Baptist.  On top of that, he had attended the Catholic Private School as a youngster.  He was fairly steeped in tradition and made no apologies for that.  Instead, he would just explain to whomever he was talking that though the church was not not his preferred style, he knew that God was at work there.  He understood that Compass would not be for everyone but loved that it had been planted to reach people the traditional church could not reach.
During those last weeks of Dad's life, I saw more love for Jesus displayed by Bob than I had ever seen in all of his years.

Little did we know that at that very time, Bob was carrying around a destroyer inside his own body that would too soon take his life.  After Dad went to Heaven in February, he and my sister went home, planning to return in a few weeks.  April came too quickly that year.  He fought for his life with courage and strength.  We were saddened to know that Bob would lose that fight before we could see him again.

This past week makes two years that he is gone.  Our family circle is broken for the time, but he left a legacy of Godly devotion, positive thought and a life-time of loving that we still carry.  We miss him and Dad but they are not forgotten.  One day, and not so very long, we will be together in Heaven and never be separated again.