Transition

On the day I was born my parents named me William, but no one ever calls me that. When I was a toddler, it was Little Billy. As I grew older everyone, except my mother and grandmother, dropped little and I was just Billy. It was during high school that Billy was shortened to Bill and that’s where it’s stayed. William is strictly used for document signing.

I am the youngest of three children. This perpetually made me the baby of the family or so I thought. Life always has a way of flipping the script and it has only taken me eighty-five years to learn that. If you have some time, I’ll explain what I mean.

There is an eleven-year gap between my oldest brother Jim and me. His actual name is James, but as with my name, he started life as Jimmy and eventually transitioned to Jim. I have always been envious of Jim because he got to do the cool stuff, I was too young to do. He got to play football while I could only watch in the stands. When he started to drive, I was barely tall enough to see out the windshield. From his perspective, I was that nuisance little kid he always got stuck babysitting when he had better things to do.

My other brother, Michael, then Mikey, then Mike, and I were five years apart. I think he always resented me a little bit for replacing him as the youngest. We played together if Jim was busy, otherwise, he was Jim’s shadow. My relationship with Mike shifted closer by default after Jim graduated from high school and joined the army.

Time marched along as relentlessly as always and I was the last kid left at home. After Jim finished his enlistment, he moved back to our hometown, married his high school sweetheart and had two boys. Mike went to college and after graduating landed a good paying job in the financial field. He also married a lady he met at work and had two daughters.

I guess the next logical question is, what about me? I went to the same high school as my brothers and played football just like Jim. During my first practice, the coach asked me how Jim was doing. They would occasionally talk when he came to my games. It made me feel important It was as though I was following Jim’s legacy. I went to a junior college that offered aviation as a major and started flying commercially after I graduated.

Now I was the cool uncle bringing my nieces and nephews gifts from all over the world. Whenever possible, I would attend family gatherings and catch up on the latest news. Mom would always ask when I was going to get married and settle down and dad asked if I was saving any money for retirement. Conversations with my brothers usually started with, do you remember when this happened, or right after you were born… Our talks normally kept going until well into the evening. The kids would wander in and listen to our chats from time to time expressing surprise to hear about all the things these old men used to do. When I look back on these get-togethers, they were the closest I’ve ever felt to my family.

Over time both cancer and a heart attack took my parents. Five years later, even though his wife relentlessly hounded him to get the vaccine, Jim refused, choosing to follow a podcast conspiracy theorist instead. He caught a severe case of the flu, and he was gone. His sons were young adults starting their own lives and no longer interested in the cool uncle.

The bond between Mike and I faded into nothing more than Christmas cards and a phone call on our respective birthdays. I attended the girls’ weddings, but we have only spoken once since then, at Mike’s funeral. He was a victim of a drunk driver.

More time has passed, and I find myself the patriarch of a family that only exists on paper. I sit in my small one-bedroom apartment seldom speaking to anyone. I was asked once about writing a memoir about all my travels and the people I’ve met, but it would be a waste of what little time I have left. Books require people interested in reading them. I have none of them.