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My little sister Ri and my little brother Kim. Can you tell from this picture that they are the sweet 2 in our family of 4?
As the oldest, I was well-meaning but kind of bossy. My brother Mark and I were also the naughty ones. |
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Mark grew up to be brave and funny and kind. He was always ready to help, to play, to enjoy, to emote. |
When our Great-Aunt Mae was in a nursing home, Mark was the one who cared enough to woo all the kitchen staff into sending her up the hot dogs she loved instead of the fish that she hated. As a result, Aunt Mae was happy, he was happy, and the people in the kitchen were very, very happy.
At our mom’s 80th birthday-party-cum-musical-comedy, I thought nothing of writing him into the hardest roles–including Elvis. (That photo shows him belting out an Elvis number.) I knew he would knock them out of the ball park. He did.
After a year of telling us he had “a cold”, he went to the hospital and died of melanoma, all through his chest, in two days. How we miss him.
4 responses so far ↓
1 fuzzypanda68@a... // May 9, 2004 at 9:39 pm
I loved reading this but was very sad about Mark. You made him sound like such a nice guy. God Bless
2 Julie Leung // May 9, 2004 at 10:11 pm
I’m sorry, Betsy. I’ve also lost a brother: our family was 2 girls and 2 boys and I was the oldest, like you. I enjoyed your memories from happy times. I try to remember the fun we four had as kids although it becomes both harder and easier to remember as I get older: easier because now I’m a mom watching my own kids do what I once did, but harder because the years disappear in my mind. I miss my brother too!
3 Adina Levin // May 10, 2004 at 6:47 am
Betsy, I’m sorry to hear this. Condolences to you and your family.
4 Betsy Devine // May 10, 2004 at 7:57 pm
Thanks, Lahoma, Julie, Adina. My brother would have loved being part of our blogging neighborhood–and I wish, scandalous as a Mark-blog would surely have been (!) that he had had one. He was a handsome, loving and lovable, naughty Irish boy who died much too young (in 1998), but who would have died much too young if he’d lived to be 90.