According to our mom, on his seventh birthday, my oldest brother Mitch went to school and announced to anyone who’d listen, “Guess what I almost got for my birthday! A baby sister!”

To be fair, I was born about 19.5 hours before his birthday. His daughter Sarah cut it closer, coming about three hours before my 16th birthday.

Late Friday night as I was settling in for bed, I noticed a text on my phone from Mitch’s number with just three words: “Dad is gone.” It was from Sarah.

Though I knew Mitch’s throat cancer had metastisized, I didn’t know the extent, and thus didn’t expect his end to come so soon (he had been playing it down for me, apparently not wanting to worry me, which my mom did as well for her cancer; I’d really prefer people tell me the truth). It made me regret even more not being able to see him when he came down to Little Rock last month for a colonoscopy (and I really should have pressed him on why he needed to come down here for that, but I didn’t, which makes me mad now).

I won’t be able to attend services for him either, because of work (including my side gig), my health, a long-delayed move (which ended up not happening anyway; I just want my bed!), and the risk of me driving that far in my current mental state (especially knowing how close I came to having an accident—twice—when I traveled for Corey’s service four years ago at around the same time of year). It may not sit well with some of the family, but I know what I’m capable of and what I’m not, though sometimes I delude myself that I’m capable of more.

I’m not dealing well with the latest news, coming so closely on the heels of the death of my friend and colleague Danny Shameer, who was, to me, another brother. But Mitch actually was my brother, and I’ve looked up to him my whole life. He was my protector, my mentor, my buddy who’d play ball with me when no one else would (he and Corey were great about that, which is why it’s hurt so much losing them). I remember crying when he was baptized at the age of 12 because I believed that it meant he couldn’t play with me anymore, something that was thankfully false.

Mitch was a man of many talents. Not many people back home don’t know of his talent for music, and more than a few have sat and listened to him play his guitar (or mandolin at times) and sing. While I wasn’t the Lynyrd Skynyrd fan he was (not sure if anyone could come close), hearing him on “Gimme Three Steps” or (God help me) “Free Bird” (which he tried and failed to get as his senior class’ song) was pure joy because he so loved playing those songs. I still have on my phone several songs he sent me, including multiple versions of “The Sound of Silence” (he was obsessed with Disturbed’s version, as am I). More than a few times I sang along with him when I was a teenager, though not on stage (on a porch next to him at a church get-together at someone’s house, yes, but never on stage; my introversion wouldn’t allow that).

He sang and played in multiple bands, some with regrettable names like Blind Beaver and Hooz YER Daddy, but seemed satisfied with just playing the occasional small gig. If he had ever made it big and done music full-time, you can bet I would be right there backstage cheering him on, because my Bubba rocked quite literally.

He was a bit of a goofball (surprising, I know), and loved to laugh as well as to make people laugh. The picture of him in his devil costume for Halloween (if I remember correctly, it was his senior year and he wore it to work at the pizza place he worked at then, probably Godfather’s) never fails to make me giggle. And while he wasn’t quite the storyteller Corey was, he could still get people laughing with his jokes and impressions. (I think he might have been the one to tell us about an elderly neighbor who was slowly repairing a barn, saying, “I just do two or three licks with the hammer, and then I rest.” Lord, do I feel that now.)

He was also a restaurateur, at one time owning three pizzerias in western Arkansas, ones that seeped into the community consciousness with their true family atmosphere; one of the last ones was the Pizza Parlour in Alma, which Corey and his love Carletta ran before his death from covid. The restaurant closed after that (there’s a long, confusing and fractious story about that that I won’t get into), but has since been re-opened by former employees including Carletta.

And he was also a master fisherman, taking after our dad, as well as an occasional Pradco consultant and fishing guide. Daddy took all of us on our own fishing trips with him when we were kids, but I only got one (while I caught a lot of crappie on our trip, I was probably a bit too restless for something so sedate … OK, I was definitely too antsy). Mitch, on the other hand, went with him a lot, especially once he was an adult. On those trips, Mitch learned probably the most anyone ever did from Daddy about his life, things that really surprised me when I learned them later, like the car accident that killed Daddy’s first love and injured him.

That’s because Mitch was a good listener, much better than I’ve ever been. He was eager to discover new tidbits of information, and would just let you talk. Sometimes that’s what is needed more than anything.

More than anything right now, I’m glad to believe that now Mitch is in no more pain, and more than likely enjoying some of Grandpa Grover’s and Corey’s tall tales (they were the best storytellers) and hugging Mama and Daddy, and today celebrating Grandpa’s birthday. I sure wish he could have stayed longer, but we don’t always get what we want.

Mitch’s last several years weren’t the best, thanks to grief (a marriage, two relationships that ended in his girlfriends’ deaths [the first one a murder by her daughter], Mama’s and Corey’s deaths), depression inherited from Daddy (I got it too), PTSD from an accident in North Little Rock that could have killed him (his truck was rear-ended by a semi; the only thing that saved him and the friend with him was that they were pulling a boat behind them), and other ailments that took their toll before cancer set in. As Sarah told me Friday night, he was ready to go after suffering so badly.

Still, his last years were not who he was, and not what those of us who knew and loved him will remember. We may not have been ready to lose him, but we’ll always remember the protective brother, fierce friend, big goofball, generous man and rocking musician who made our lives brighter.

Rest well, Bubba. I love you.