FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

IN MOURNING FOR MY COUSIN BOBBY

"You have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears."
James 4:13-17

Yesterday I received the sad news that my dear cousin Bobby Jenckes  died. Speaking to  his son who called to tell me the news, I felt  a great wave of sadness and disbelief sweep over me.  Bob was my oldest Jenckes first cousin and someone who had helped me in so many ways throughout my life.  Bob was stoic and totally dependable.  He had a dry sense of humour  and he was also unfailingly kind.  He never drew attention to himself; he just quietly fulfilled the ministries of family  devotion and dedication.

  I recall especially when  my Aunt Grace was failing in health and staying with me, Bob started to just show up in the early morning with coffee. He would help me by lifting Grace so that I could wash and dress her for the day.  
Then in the evening he would return to reverse the process.  Grace trusted him totally because of his steadiness and strength. She would  insist that we wait for him if  I tried to start the procedure before his arrival.

     She loved that he made light of it, never  pointing out that he was  there to help, but just saying that he  had  thought we might like some coffee. Aunt Grace picked up on his style--truth be told--he had probably learned it from her. She told me to buy a bottle of good  Cream Sherry. And each  night we would pour out the small snifters in a row of three and await his coming in the door. She wanted to see it as a social occasion, and then that made it acceptable to Grace. 

In my own  experience I have sometimes been frustrated  by the reticence of the Jenckes clan--my father's Yankee side of the family.  But I see that it was always a form of  mutual respect. Sometimes carried too far but better than interrogating people about their life choices. 
Bob demonstrated  a kind of respect for the dignity and integrity of each person and a refusal to violate that with questions or any judgement.  I would say that  was true about my Aunt Grace and my Cousin Bob---they both stood  firm in the judgement free zone and they  protected it like home court.

I had the good fortune to have had Bob's companionship from childhood. Many Sundays my Aunt Grace would come by bus to   our house in Pawtucket and take me with her by bus to Providence--a quick stop for ice cream at Shrafts--and then onto Warwick. There I would join  Bob's three sisters and we would pester him to play with us.  I remember that he sometimes let me  sit on the back of his bike.  That was a rare privilege and I  knew it.


I would say that the windows that Bob and I shared as adults were  infrequent and unexpected. When I returned from graduate school at the University of Illinois to Rhode Island after my divorce, I taught for a year as an Instructor in the English Department of Rhode Island College. That same year Bob, who had finished his stint in the Navy. returned to College to complete his education at RIC.  It seemed to amuse him that I was teaching where he was  attending school. We would  bump into each other on campus and sometimes we  would share a coffee.

Bob must have noticed that I was  a little at loose ends--living as a single mother with my six year old son in an apartment in Providence. He suggested that I come to his house on Saturdays and keep his wife company while he was at work.  He put it in those  generous terms-- as if I would be doing him a favor. 

When I  accepted his invitation  and showed up on Saturday, his wife was very welcoming.  My son Joe played with her son Stephen and that friendship really helped my acceptance of  raising a child with no father to help.

Bob  represented two dominant traits from the Jenckes DNA--he had great height and he was a workaholic.  The Jenks/ Jenckes  colonial  founders were famous for their great height.  Joseph Jenks was a  foundryman and  started the first foundry in the Bay Colony in Saugus, and then his son came to the Blackstone and  began the First Foundry  in what would become Pawtucket near the Falls,
When I think of them I picture tall and strong blacksmiths.  They must have really stood out in the  mid 1600s when average height was much shorter,
They passed this trait on --one Jenckes father with ten daughters --each 6 ft or better--was quoted as boasting that he had  "60 running feet of daughters": see there's that dry wit I spoke of earlier.

Anyway not all Jenckes' are giants but none are short.  Every once in a while the gene shows off, and Bob was about 6 feet 7 inches.

Bob also was extremely active and hard working. After he "retired"
at or around 70 years, he still kept busy with three part-time jobs.
In the last two years I saw less of Bobby, and although I was always invited to family gatherings, my own limitations or hospitalizations and rehab stints prevented me from accepting. Most recently after Bob's surgery I  had to content myself with phone conversations.   I  limited myself on those because I did not want to tire  him.
He said that he was  doing better and I believed  him.  But then he said that he was very tired. And  that was a new note.
  
He is resting now.  I pray that his children and all who love him rest in the knowledge that he is in a better place and that his spirit is busy watching over us all.