The One Where Baby Bubby Turns “50”

My baby brother turns 50 this week. Being the oldest, I have hit milestones before him but this one hits different. My baby brother is turning fifty.

Everyone has always said that we are daylight and dark. Me with blonde hair. Him with dark. He is easy going and trusts everyone. Me – trust issues and a discernment for the both of us.

I remember the day that Daddy and I went to the hospital to pick him and Mom up. I was four and wore my favorite dress. Navy blue with gold buttons. We pulled up in front of the hospital in my mom’s black Lincoln Continental and Daddy said, “Look”, pointing up. As I leaned to look up, I saw my mom in the window holding my baby brother. Fifty years ago, siblings were not allowed on maternity wards. Daddy locked me in the running car with the air on and said – Do not touch the doors and don’t move. I’ll BE RIGHT BACK. Soon after, my mom and baby brother were wheeled out with a bunch of flowers. Daddy had me get in the back seat with flowers all over the floorboard. Mom handed my baby brother to me and said – here is your new baby and I held him all of the way home. No carseat. Just me holding him in my little four year old arms. I instantly fell in love with him and took it to literal heart – here is your new baby and have been in full mother bear mode for him ever since.

Even though we have the same name, we are so much different than the other and that’s ok. Just like any other siblings, we have had our share of arguments from who is going to sit up front in the vehicle to much larger scale issues. But one thing through it all has always remained the same, we always come back together better and stronger.

Over the last fifty years, we have experienced a lot of big together. He was the first to marry. I was the first divorced. He was first to be come a father. I was last to become a mother. He was first to become a grandfather. I was first to become an aunt. The one thing we both experienced together was the loss of our father. Together is where we are always no matter the reason. When we were little, it always aggravated me that I had to wait to do things but he was able to earlier because I was with him. For instance, I wasn’t allowed to ride my bike in the road of our neighborhood until I was a certain age. But not baby Bubby! Because he had me with him. What I realize is that the reason he was allowed to do the things I had to wait for was because he had me with him. And whether he has realized it or not, he has always had me with him and always will even as adults. I will always have his back in full mother bear mode.

I am blessed to be his big little sister as he calls me as he is six foot four and towers over me at five foot six. My prayer for him has been and continues to be that he is healthy, happy, loved, very well taken care of as he takes care of everyone else in his life and that he is not taken advantage of with his kind heart and soul.

His love for the Dukes of Hazard and the General Lee is like no other. I can guarantee you that there is no one else on this planet that can tell you any fact about the series like he can. He has been absolutely obsessed from the night it premiered to the very second you are reading this and forever will be.

His love for music is almost as much as his love for the General Lee. I can remember him sitting on the center armrest as our mom drove while they sang together the intro to the Dukes of Hazard show. And boy can he sing. I have always been his biggest fan. Always.

I could go on and on and on about my baby brother and what an amazing son, brother, husband, father, uncle, grandfather and friend he is to everyone in his life. He is one of the most dedicated people I know to his family and his community. No one else would I have wanted to do life with as a sister than with him.