by Andréa Matos
The day my brother died was a hot July 3rd in 1976, approximately one month shy of the year and a half that had passed since when my father had died of a heart attack.
It would be our first and only trip as what remained of our family, me, my brother and our mother. We had never taken a trip with our father. It is hard as a farmer to go away. Land, crops and livestock need continuous tending.
My mother, brother and I had made the trip to Williamsburg, Virginia with a church group. A bus had taken us the four hours from our home in southeastern rural North Carolina north eastward towards the Outer Banks on the Atlantic and then due north into Virginia.
We would spend July 4th at a hotel in Williamsburg while visiting the historic fort of Old Williamsburg reflective of the early colonists who had settled the eastern seaboard, remain there until the weekend and head out on Sunday arriving home late that night.
My mother might have been nervous. I am not sure. My brother and mother had engaged in an angry exchange during the three weeks prior. My brother, then thirteen, and as most boys was into sports.
He, like most men today, liked watching every televised sporting event time allowed. Gone were the days when I, the older sister could trick him into thinking a game began two hours later, when my movie would have ended.
We had only one television. He read and interpreted the TV Guide, determining what he wanted to watch and start times as well as I did.
(to be continued …)
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