This blog is about my brother, Daniel William Ward Denomme, born May 22, 1969. This one is hard to write and I've lived with this my whole life. You could say it became a part of who I am.
There are some questions about how he came about because there were questionable circumstances. I had never really put any real thought to it till a few years ago. If you look at my sisters, he didn't look anything like anyone else. We all had brown hair - he had blonde hair. My mother had red hair, my father dark brown. Then there's the way my father acted toward the circumstance and my brother. Let me give you the story.
Prior to his birth, he was actually supposed to be born around the 28th of April of that year but there were circumstances that prevented that. My mother would go into labor and since her OB/GYN was on vacation, his substitute would try to delay the birth with medication. If you look at this length of time - my mother carried him almost 10 months. My mother and father were separated before his birth and while she was enjoying her freedom, sharing herself with just about anyone that would walk in the door. So that's where I question his paternity. I'm not sure of when my father and mother spent time together and when these other guys started walking in the door. There were circumstances in which I was a part of that he was actually born.
Remember at about this time I'm only in 5th grade. My mother had me go to a neighbor's trailer to do laundry and the son of the neighbor told me how to work the machine. He forgot an important factor - he forgot to tell me to put the hose in the sink, thus my mother and myself were mopping up water. All of a sudden she said she had to go to the hospital because she was in labor so I finished. So yeah, I'll never forget that.
Come to find out my brother was born with Cerebral Palsy and brain damage. We found out he was born with this condition because the cord was wrapped around his neck. The unfortunate thing was there was no telling how long it had been like this. So if he was born on his due date, or thereabouts, would he have been more functional? My mother was hounded by lawyers as they stated she had a case, but she refused. She said she didn't feel right about making money off of him like that. He ended up being my life and I did all I could to make things easier for my mom - who had 4 girls to deal with. He was always happy and as he grew he would lay on the floor and learned to roll around and laugh.
I remember one night in particular where he was crying and it wasn't his normal cry. My mother was frustrated and she wasn't getting any sleep. She would go in and yell at him, and yes - she would spank him. I got up and told her to go to bed that I would take over. I rocked him all night long until he finally went to sleep. My mother kept me home from school and she took him to the doctor. Come to find out he had epilepsy.
During this time my father wasn't sending support and my mother had to figure out where we would live. The company who owned the trailer wanted to evict us but because my brother was handicapped they couldn't. My mother finally called the Sheriff's Department and told them they had to in order for us to be moved into the "Projects".
I have often wondered why my father acted differently toward my brother - like he didn't accept him. I'm not sure if it was because of my brother's condition or was it the paternity. I have never asked him because this I felt was between him and my mother. But it is something I have thought about.
For the most part, I did what I could to keep my brother happy and make his life easy. Eventually my mother decided we couldn't handle him anymore as he was getting to big to handle. We eventually put him in an institution where he could get the care he needed. My mother met up with a woman who had a daughter there (my mother had never learned to drive) and she would take one of us up with her on her visit with him.
I remember one time I was there and we were waiting for my brother to be brought out. I saw a girl, who was handicapped, and I smiled at her. She came back at me saying "What are you laughing at?" Boy did that hurt, but I understood. I know she was just lashing out because she wasn't used to people just smiling at her, that she knew she was different. How sad to be a person in that position and not be able to trust people because she felt no one was giving her a smile - she thought the whole world was laughing. This world can be so cruel.
Eventually I moved to my dad's and didn't see much of Danny and I joined the Air Force. I was at my first base in Hawaii - arrived in September 1979. In January 1980, I was informed by my First Sergeant that my brother had passed away. Seeing that Hawaii was considered in an Overseas location, I had to catch a military flight back to the states and I was able to borrow money for the flight within the states. Understand that back in my day when I joined the Air Force, when we had to fly on a military flight, you were required to wear your blues. Since I had just joined not too long before that, my blues consisted of a skirt, blues jacket, blouse. When we were walking out on the tarmac I saw this plane - come to find out it was a C-130. Looking at this plane, there wasn't a walkway leading to the door. Holy crap! There's a friggin' ladder and it goes straight up. So here I am with my arms full and in a skirt. The loadmaster advised me to get at the back of the line since I was in a skirt. As I'm getting ready to climb this ladder with my backpack, he tells me I need to hold my skirt closed. My response was.... "If you haven't already seen what I've got, then you are the with the problem" and I continued to climb the ladder with no regard to holding my skirt closed. Shit my life was more important at that time considering I'm scared as hell of heights.
The funeral was hard on me as he was the first to pass in our family and I have carried this throughout my life. I like to think it's just him showing me that he still remembers everything I did for him. My mother made sure that my father was responsible for his funeral costs. Little did I know, that this would come up later...another blog to follow soon I'm sure.
When Danny was born we've always held this song true to him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jgma--0WYU
Danny I love and Miss you!
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