A Special Kind Of Bond

This past weekend my brother spent Friday and Saturday evening in the hospital with his baby girl. My 3-year-old niece Dezi was running a high fever Friday afternoon, and after a call from the daycare, my brother Tommy, rushed her to the hospital. She’s fine now, but when I talked with my brother Sunday afternoon, they were still at the hospital and my brother hadn’t had any sleep. He says he was afraid to take his eyes off of her, even for one second.

I wish I could have been there for him, because I hate that he had to endure that anguish alone. But I couldn’t, because he’s in Florida, and I’m in South Carolina. My mother is in Kentucky and my father is in Indiana, and they couldn’t have been with him either. My brother has lots of loved ones in Orlando, but no blood relative.

While talking with my brother, I asked how Dezi was handling being in the hospital, and he said that she was demanding to go home and that every time the doctor came by to take blood, she would give him the evil eye. At one time, the doctor remarked on how he’s never been looked at as viciously as the way Dezi looks at him. That’s how fierce my niece is.

I called my father after I talked to my brother to let my Dad know that Tommy was in the hospital with Dezi, and although my voice held steady while talking with my brother, I nearly broke down when I heard my father’s voice on the other end, which is odd for me, because I am not an overtly emotional person when it comes to relating with my Dad. I’ve always been independent and analytical when it comes to the relationship I have with him.

The last time my emotions got the best of me with my father, I was eight years old, and my mother and I, and my two siblings had been out all day visiting with friends. When we returned home, I noticed my father was not there waiting for us, but instead there was a note laying on the end table in the far right corner of the room. I can’t remember if I saw it before my mother, but somehow I got a hold of the note and learned that my father was moving out. My heart broke in two with that piece of paper, and the tears were nothing but steady streams.

Although I gave up the dependent naive Daddy’s girl routine at a very young age, my love for him and my admiration for my father never wavered. For me, my father has always been and will always be the smartest man I’ve ever met. In my opinion no one could ever beat him when it comes to intellectual discussion. He is indeed a walking encyclopedia and knows just about everything when it comes to politics, history, science and math.

My father is a connoisseur of information and when people ask me how I got such an unusual first name, I tell them it’s because my father is a history buff, although by trade he’s a middle school math teacher. Not to take anything away from my mother, but we have a difference type of relationship.

What my father and I have is kind of unusual. Our favorite past time with each other seems to be an endless debate session. We disagree on just about everything. But instead of having open emotional rants over the telephone, most times we spend our minutes defending our points of view. Whether it’s Gay Rights, Obama’s political agenda or the right to bear arms, he and I usually end up on opposite ends of the aisle. I turn left and my father turns right, and yet I still admire him.

Once my Grandmother and I were discussing the relationship my father and I have with each other and she said that it reminded her of the relationship he had with his father, my grandfather. I never met my Grandfather. He died when my father was a freshman in college, but if I had to, then I would have to say that my Grandfather would have been the smartest man I would have ever met.

My Grandmother says my father and his father used to sit at the kitchen table and debate issues and world views for hours on end. And my Grandfather use to drill my father on anything and everything. I can only imagine my father as a young boy trying to keep up with his Dad, who was a brilliant scientist. My grandfather, Thomas A. Jenkins I, was a nuclear physicist for NASA and conducted experiments with a team of other great minds in a nuclear reactor in Sandusky, Ohio.

A few years ago, I contacted NASA in regards to my grandfather. The Records and Forms Manager/ History officer there in turn sent me copies of a report that my Grandfather authored, as well as company newsletters highlighting my grandfather’s achievements, along with a video and a book on the importance of the Plum Brook Nuclear Reactor; my grandfather’s research facility.

I am so thankful for those pieces of the grandfather whom I have never met. And although I cannot sit at a kitchen table and discuss my stance on abortion or healthcare with this man, I am eternally grateful that I have the opportunity to spend hours on end to get my views across to his son, my Dad.

My father is a great man, and the best Dad I could ever wish for. And my brother is a great father too. His two children, strong-willed Dezi, and mild-tempered baby DJ, mean the world to my brother. Tommy brought Dezi home from the hospital yesterday afternoon and it’s really of great comfort to know that Dezi is feeling better now and is home and safe in the arms of her father.

I don’t know what type of relationship my brother will have with his first born, our Dezi, but I can only imagine that it’s going to be intellectually explosive. She already has mastered two languages, English and Spanish, and calls the shots around the house. She’s smarter than most kids her age and will fight at the drop of a dime if someone messes with one of her loved ones. I don’t know if she’ll be a good debater, but as my brother has already told me many times before, Dezi dear, reminds him a whole lot of me. And if she’s anything like my grandfather, she’ll succeed at anything and everything that she puts her mind to.