Mark Dewayne EADS was my older brother. He was born 8 August, 1959 in Poplar Bluff, Butler County, Missouri. He was the fourth child, second son born to my parents. I never knew my brother and so therefore he only existed to me in the stories I was told and the pictures that I saw of him.
He and I had one thing in common and that was our love for the color purple. It was his favorite color. I remember when I was about 17 years old my mother got into a discussion with me about the circumstances surrounding my brothers death. I was in tears by the time she had finished. How do you cry for someone you never met? Yet you feel all these emotions as though you had known them for a lifetime?
My father was an ordained minister and so myself and my siblings were raised in church and so we spent a lot of time on a church pew. Mark and my brother Tim used to like to play Church. Mom said they would drag out an old suitcase they had and make it their platform. Mark would say to Tim: "You be Brother Eads and Ill be Brother Barlow". She said they would have a stomping good time, slinging their fingers and expounding the word of God to their stuffed animals. Mark seemed to be his brothers keeper. Mom said one day he come running through the front door and went and found his daddy`s hammer and she said: "Hold on a minute young man, just where do you think you are going with that hammer?" He said someone was being mean to his Brudder and he was gonna take care of them!
Mark got hurt on Memorial Day Weekend in 1965. He and my siblings were playing on a neighbors porch and they had some old folding chairs on their porch. One of the chairs accidentally closed up on Marks fingers and pinched one almost completely off. They rushed him to the local hospital, someone they knew was a nurse and so she put a tourniquet on the finger until they could get to the hospital. From there he was taken to Cardinal Glennon Hospital in Saint Louis. He died as a result of Tetanus in his wound. Mom said that she had failed to get his booster shot to prevent it and has lived with that to this date. From her explanation of his death to me it was pretty bad, she said the night that he passed away she was lying in the bed and she heard organ music begin to play and about that time the phone rang. It was the hospital telling them that he had taken a turn for the worse and they needed to get up there. Mom said she told Dad not to hurry because he was already gone and she knew it. Sure enough, by the time they got to the hospital he had passed away. Mom said the nurses had to pull her off him as she just collapsed on him sobbing her eyes out. It was just so sad hearing of what my parents went through. As a mother and grandmother I can only imagine their sorrow and pain. And the guilt they must have felt over not having gotten his booster immunization.
For years mom kept one of his outfits and his sandals. I could not bear to look at them. Being a child, I was afraid of Death and of Dead folks. Just knowing they belonged to him and he was gone made me afraid. She finally was able to part with them.
I often wonder what my brother would have been like? Would he have liked the same things that I did? Mom said he had the most beautiful blonde hair. My youngest son and one of my nephews both had really blonde hair when they were Marks age as well. Its just the little things that you think about and wonder, did they maybe get that from their Uncle Mark? I am certain that Mark watches over me and is with me in spirit. Even though I never knew him, he is still my brother and I felt he deserved some recognition with todays 52 Ancestors Post.
Check back next Wednesday for another story in this series.
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