Brothers.

The Briggs boys: Howard, Mike, Sam, Charles Vernon (their father), John (my grandfather), Lefty, and Holt. 

Dear Grandaddy, 

More than anything, you taught me about joy. 

You loved to tell stories, particularly when your brothers were around. I remember you sitting in a circle of folding chairs under the carport at your house, all of you with thick, white hair, shaking with laughter. There was the time you dressed up like a gorilla and scared a bunch of Boy Scouts camping in the woods. And the time you stole the fake treasure chest on the train at Tweetsie Railroad, stumping the actors playing train robbers. You kept a straight face as they searched high and low, and eventually gave up and left the train. And the time when you were a kid and the preacher came by the house to chastise you boys for playing baseball on Sunday. When he demanded to speak to your father, you calmly replied, “Why sure. He’s over there playing third base.” 

You were born in the middle of 11 kids, but your brothers Lefty, Howard, Holt, and Mike were the ones I knew best, almost as much a part of my growing up as you and Nana. On Saturday afternoon, we’d pile into the Buick, the trunk full of eight-packs of Sun-Drop in glass bottles, tender barbecue in paper containers, and plastic bags of store-bought white hamburger buns. We’d all meet at Uncle Mike and Aunt Mary’s. I’d play with my cousins, daring each other to touch the cage of live crickets Mike kept in the shed for fishing bait, and taking turns sitting in the canoe on dry ground, pretending to row. As night fell, we’d play ghost in the graveyard until it got too dark to see.

In the middle of our whirling chaos of kid energy, you grown-ups would sit and laugh together. I occasionally spun into the circle for a hug or another piece of pie, quickly darting out again to rejoin the kids. All that talking and sitting seemed boring to my over-sugared self. 

I can still see you all there, sitting in a circle on a warm summer night, oblivious to time and darkness. I can still hear your laugh, rumbling up from somewhere deep down, bubbling to the surface like water from a well. In my mind’s eye, the center of the circle glows with light. Maybe there was a lantern there, or candles, but I don’t remember, and it doesn’t matter anyway. All I know is that I was a sweaty little kid in the dark reveling in her freedom, who could always find her way back to you if the darkness became too much. 

The Briggs boys: John (my grandfather), Lefty and Sam in back, Mike and Holt in front, Howard on the right.