| Miracles Never Cease Part 4 page 1 of 4 It has been seven years since Robert was in the Baptist Hospital. It is now 2003. Since then, my stepfather no longer lives with my mother. He had gotten so mean to Robert that she finally had to make him leave. He even called Robert out in the yard one night while my mother was asleep to fight him. But he said nothing happened. He had to have something going wrong in his head to want to fight someone like Robert. He was very jealous of Robert; I mean the attention that my mother gave to Robert. But that’s enough about that. Through the years we noticed that Robert was getting more and more hateful and he started fussing a lot, it was a gradual thing, not that drastic. We just figured if we had to live a life like his we would be worse than that. His life still consist of the TV and Food being his only joy other than the usual first of the month going to Wal-mart and getting some new movies and his pack of M&M’s. (he could have anything he wanted but that’s all he ever wanted) Then mama would take him to McDonalds to get him a big Mac, French fries and a large chocolate milk shake. She would take him to Teresa’s Barber Shop and get him a hair cut and his mustache trimmed. Teresa was the one that has always cut his hair, she loved to get him started, and you would think they hated each other the way they would fuss back and forth but if was all in fun. Teresa really loved Robert, and she knew all about what he had been through. That was about the only places Robert would go. We still play our chess and checkers about everyday, I was so sick of them that one year at Christmas everyone bought us all kinds of games, I bet we had fifty different games. He liked to play Life, Monopoly, and loved the game Trouble, but still his favorites were chess and checkers, we played so much that it didn’t matter who won or lost, and he would quit sometimes because he was bored, but it was just that he enjoyed being with me, I guess. He wouldn’t play games with anybody else that was our thing. He had every kind of toy you could imagine, all kind of remote controlled cars, trucks, fire trucks, and stuffed animals, he had a pirate that recorded what you say and would say it back, he had the singing fish, catfish and an alligator. He loved that kind of stuff, He had little cars with no wheels because he would bite off the wheels, don’t ask me why, he just did. He had a singing Hank Williams Jr., He had this little basket beside his chair that he kept his little cars in and his Rubik’s Cube in, I remember the first one he had after he was in the wreck, he could never get the colors back like they were suppose to be so he peeled all the stickers off and put them where they were suppose to go. I think that was start, my sister and I went as far as to take the cube apart and put it back together right, but the cube was very loose after that, we never thought of peeling off the stickers. But, that was Robert; he was smart in his mind. He could come back with the funniest things to say if you tried to get something on him. Sometimes if he said something funny, I guess he didn’t think it was that funny and if you laughed to loud or too much he would get very angry and start hollering out and fussing at you because he thought you were laughing at him instead of at what he said. He had a temper….a big temper that he could not control, but everyone knew to look over him. Sometimes we would get mad too but nothing really major. One thing about Robert, he would be mad enough to kill and then he would be ok, just that fast, like someone flipped a switch. You had to look over him most of the time or you would stay mad forever. You had to watch him, he never really hurt anyone, but he had the potential if he wanted to. He would make you think he was going to hit you or something. You couldn’t let him know that you were afraid of him, and I never backed down from him, though I would never ever hit him. He didn’t know that, being brother and sister we have always wrestled and fought like kids do so it was the same thing. Once he saw you weren’t scared of him he would flip that switch in his head and start laughing or being silly. One time he told me that he was going to round house kick me, I laughed and told him to go ahead, and I would pay him to see that. Things like that would make him mad but you know me I couldn’t resist, then he would get alright in a minute. Our fights were full of love and everybody knew it. Sometimes he would put his arm around my neck and pull me close like a head lock. He never squeezed too hard; I think that was his kind of hug for me. Once he did that and pulled me over and kissed me on the cheek, I was so surprised. That was so sweet. He got where he would hug or kiss us more than he used to, he was never one to show love to much, when I would leave mama’s house I would always say” I love you brother” and he would say” yelp” kind of like… dido. My daughter and my grandson moved in with mama’s that was a lot of help to her. Janie would always shave him for mama, I tried to shave him several times but with me he wanted to pick a lot, he would claim that I was pulling the hairs out; he wouldn’t be still for me. Janie never had that problem, he would sit still for her and let her shave him and she was very good with him on things like that. Janie and Robert would argue sometimes but nothing more than your kids would, sometimes Austin my grandson of 3 years old would get on Robert’s nerves and he would fuss at him. Austin running past Robert is what would pee him off. He would yell out at Austin for running, it used to scare him when Robert would yell, but he got use to it. Then Austin would do things to make Robert mad just so they could fuss, a three year old was not scared of Robert, so you know he wasn’t that bad. If Robert would say something mean to Janie, Austin would put his hands on his sides and say to Robert” you better leave my mama alone. Then mama would make them all quit fussing before it got to bad. Christmas was Roberts’s favorite time of all, he was like a little kid, he would get so excited about Santa Clause bringing him toys, and he always did. Robert would get his happiest at Christmas, he would go around singing and making these funny little noises and laughing, I loved to hear him laugh, I knew he was happy and for someone in his shape to sing and laugh…he was a better person than I would be. I guess you have noticed that as I speak of Robert, it is in past tense, that’s because He passed away June 20, of this year 2003. Robert’s health through the past few years was ok, nothing major, but in Oct of last year at one of Robert’s doctor visits the DR. Burkhart told mama that he had been monitoring Robert’s sugar level, it was high and had been high for a while. He said that Robert was going to have to go on medication for it. His sugar level was 400 or over. He had to go on two kinds of pills, and we had to check it everyday or so. The one thing that was so bad about this was taking away his sweets, he always used Sweeteners in his tea, but he loved ice cream and candy. As I said before that was part of the only joy he had left in life and now we have to take away the good stuff, it wasn’t as bad for him as we figured. We got him the diabetic cookies and candy’s he loved them just as good but Christmas was hard because we always bought him Christmas candy’s and cookies, he loved the hard Christmas candy’s, he wasn’t to much on chocolate covered cherries, he hated those, but we did manage to find him sugar free candy for Christmas and Valentines so it wasn’t that bad, once his sugar level was down to normal mama felt sorry for him and let him have a Reese Cup, BIG MISTAKE…..Robert got so mean that he was beating the walls, cursing everything in site even the people on television, mama just sat down and cried because she figured out that his sugar level is what was making him so bad. She never gave him any real candy again. Surprisingly he never ate things he knew he shouldn’t other than to much food. But he didn’t drink the sweet drinks that mama kept there for others. He would stay up at night and sleep in the day, unless he knew that some of the other grandchildren were going to be there all day, he would stay up just to fuss with them, and I think he really wanted to be around them but they would get on his nerves so bad he would get mad at them. All of the children that were raised around him knew how he was and they all really loved him even though they would argue sometimes. At night when he was up he would eat about three times or more a night, he wasted a lot of food, he would cook it and then eat half or just a bite or two. Mama knew what he ate at night because he would leave his plates sitting around the table at different place pats, you would think that four or five people had just got up from a meal. He liked slice cheese for his snacks. If you walked by his room and he heard you if the door was closed he would call out for you to bring him a piece of cheese or a glass of tea. He stayed in his room a lot watching television, and you would hear him in there fussing the people on TV. We had to take some of the movies he watched; he would get very angry over certain ones. Like the movie The Rock, that movie made him so mad we took it from him, if he saw army guys getting killed other than in war it made him mad to no end. We noticed that Robert had gotten a lot angrier with life. He was saying words that he had not ever said before, and it sure wasn’t because he heard them from any one here, it had to be the TV. We would talk to him about it but it didn’t do any good, it would go in one ear and out the other, he would act like he was listening but then go back to the same ole same ole. I really don’t think he could help it. After his diabetes was under control, he wasn’t half as bad. We always knew what movie’s he watched by the news he would tell us that happened over night, like I would go in to see him and he might said “ Russia ain’t no more, we nuked it last night, or Wal-mart ain’t no more, the Chinese mafia bombed it.” He always talked about the Chinese mafia being under the bridge down the road from our house, and he always told us that the CIA would come and pick him up at night and they would go take out or kill someone bad. He had lots of tells to tell, and he claimed to have shot more dogs in the army than you could imagine, they would steal he’s pizza’s. You never knew what he might tell you next, sometimes we would go along with it, and other times we would say to him” oh Robert, you know better” it really depended on what he was telling. Sometimes it got pretty wild or he would get nasty about it. Mama had to get on to him sometimes, but when he would go to bed mama would go in there to cover him up and she would tell him “I’m sorry I had to fuss at you today, you know I love you.” and he would always say (in his soft deep voice) “I deserved it” then mama would said “remember to pray” and Robert would reply “I pray all night long.” See Robert knew where he would go when he died; he was saved and loved the Lord very much. (cont..) |
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