Just Jay

By Loretta Morris

              He wasn’t at all like the rest of us. He was born in the dead of winter, we were all summer babies. He was short, and we are tall. Growing up he was coddled and protected, we were independent and free. He was brilliant, we are not. He had a short life, and we are all still here.              

              I remember the day he was born and being so angry that he was a boy. Back in 1965, no one knew the gender of their child before it was born, so the suspense was unbearable in our house. Our grandmother was babysitting, and we all waited for the phone call from our dad. Now the count was uneven: males 4, females 3. My brothers cheered, my sister and I pouted.

              We were a close group before he came along. Tom 10, Kathy 8, Me 7, Michael 5. I guess you could say he was an oops baby since my mother was 43 years old. This was not uncommon back then, and I would say that most of my friends were oops babies too. Come to think of it, being only 14 months younger than my sister, I probably fell into that category as well. But that’s just the way it was – babies weren’t planned, they just arrived or they didn’t.

              We waited the long week for my mother to come home from the hospital so we could meet this new brother of ours – this John Joseph who was to be called J.J., and later in his life just Jay. We were tired of our grandma’s cooking (she put milk in chicken soup to cool it off), laundry schedule (we had to wear rerun socks that week), and almost obsessive need to scrub the kitchen floor every day (she put newspapers down to dry it – so weird). And she snored – just like in cartoons where the curtains get sucked in and out.

              Finally, they came home and the changes started. Our once loud and rough and tumble household had to hush and tiptoe. We crammed seven around a kitchen table designed for six. “The Bucket” was now in the bathroom filled with diapers that stunk despite being rinsed in the toilet. Disgusting.

              But we sure liked him. We tortured him, but we liked him. We loved to put him in boxes or suitcases and then tell my mother he was lost. We drew a mustache, eyebrows, and sideburns on him with markers to make him look like Snidely Whiplash. We told him his beloved stuffed alligator, Alligoo, ran away and joined the circus. We tickled him until he cried. But we sure liked him.

              As he grew up it became obvious that he was not just smart, he was exceptional. He received the highest scores on standardized tests ever recorded in our elementary school, and he sailed through high school. We were all shocked to find out what a poor attendance record he had. When we were in school, we’d better have been half dead before asking to stay home, and even then my mom would bring us dresser drawers to clean out while we laid there burning up with fever. Jay seemed to stay home whenever he felt like it. Our mom, forever coming to his defense would say, “He’s always caught up with his work. It doesn’t seem to matter if he goes or not, he gets such good grades.” (Who was this woman, and what did she do with our mother?)

              The University of Illinois accepted him into the pre-med program, where, finally, he met his academic equals. For the first time in his life he was challenged, and after a rough first semester he rose to the occasion and did well in college. We were all so proud of him when he was accepted into the University of Illinois School of Medicine. There was to be a doctor in the family, Dr. John J. Morris. We all thought it had a nice ring to it.

              After a year of medical school, Jay and his classmate Phil, went on a medical mission trip to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Africa. They would spend 7 weeks of their summer vacation there, traveling to bush hospitals, inoculating children, giving vision and hearing exams, keeping infections in check, and whatever else needed to be done. We received long letters from him, full of wonderful stories and descriptions of his activities and surroundings. He told us of a pygmy village they visited where, at last, he was the tallest person around. (We later received a photograph of 5’ 7” Jay with a group of the villagers, towering over them, all smiles.) He told us about the baby he delivered, healthy and strong. He told us how AIDS had devastated entire villages. He told stories of disease and despair, but also of love, warmth, and happiness like he had never before experienced. He promised us hundreds of photographs.

                                                                                    *****

              “Jay is dead.” It was the voice of our father on the phone.

              Jay and Phil had finished their assigned duties and spent the last few days of their stay in Africa as tourists. They traveled to Zambia, to Victoria Falls, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The last photograph of my brother is of him sitting on a rock ledge, one hand on his chin, one on his knee, soaking wet from the never-ending spray of the falls, a rainbow in the background, a smile broad and glowing.

               And then he was gone.

              A slippery rock, loose gravel, a sharp cry of panicked surprise.

              Gone.

              “Jay is dead.”

              Tom argued with my parents for days that it just couldn’t be true. He wanted proof. Kathy ran out of her house in her pajamas crying and looking for someone, anyone, to tell her it was all just a big mistake. Michael never shed a tear publicly, or maybe ever, keeping his grief buried deep inside. I remember collapsing, crawling, a sound unlike any I had ever heard coming from…from where? From me.

              And then a blur. Waiting, days, then weeks for his body to be found, identified, and sent back to us. Going through the motions of everyday life: cooking but not eating; going to bed but not sleeping; receiving visitors; making phone calls; the endless red-tape of an international incident; making arrangements; and then, finally, mercifully, the wake, the funeral. Weeks on end, nothing but a blur.

              So why was he here, this John Joseph who was to be called J.J., and later in his life just Jay? Why was he here, only to be taken from us in one horrible instant? Why was he here? Just to crowd our table and give us someone to torture and love and be proud of? Maybe. Maybe it’s just that simple. Maybe not. Twenty-five years later we’re all still trying to figure it out. But we sure liked him.