Uncle Jimmy and the Dog-Rooster

I was about 10 when I first met Uncle Jimmy.  I don’t remember ever even hearing about Jimmy until one day in the car-ride over to one of our much anticipated trips to my grandparents’ house, Mom and Dad tried to explain that we’d be meeting Dad’s younger brother and that he was different and that we should all be very kind to him. I really didn’t understand what “different” meant as my exposure to different had been pretty limited in my small-town, Catholic school childhood.  So when we walked in Grandma’s front door, I wasn’t prepared for the grown man that came walking over with short, quick steps and extended his hand to my Dad.  “How do Brother John” Jimmy said with a big toothless grin.  After my dad said hello and shook hands with his brother, my dad turned to all of us and introduced us to Jimmy.  I remember shaking his smooth, limp hand as he said “How do Pammy.”

Jimmy was indeed different.  I starred, I’m sure a little too long and intently, at my uncle, a tall lanky man with questionmark posture, his pants hiked up a little too far over his white button-up shirt, and his hair combed over and plastered down like a young boy’s.  He was like no grown-up I’d ever met before.  Grandma tried to explain.  “When he was only two,” she said,” Jimmy got very sick -- so sick that his brain stopped growing and got stuck.  He’s been about 2 ½ or 3 for his whole life.”

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