By Jim Nichols

It is not a unique story. There were just too many people for everyone to sit at the same table for the holiday big meal. Someone had decided in an earlier year that there would be two tables—one for the adults, and one for the children. I was not consulted concerning this arrangement and I suspect no other child was either. It was not a completely bad idea, however; the children’s table was much more fun judging from the volume in the rooms.

I felt the grandparents’ house was sufficiently large, but the two-table arrangement also seemed reasonable. The adults sat in the dining room at a real table; we children sat in the kitchen at that table. Very seldom did one of us venture into the dining room during the meal and the adults entered the kitchen only to get additional food or to begin (eventually) washing dishes.

There were seven of us in the kitchen and I was about mid-age for the group. The oldest was BJ, a girl cousin that I always had trouble understanding. BJ lived in another city and the only time I saw her and her family was during a holiday usually. She had a brother near my age and their parents, though nice, were quite different from my own parents.

BJ was my first adolescent cousin and just a few years older than I. I knew other girls her age, but BJ was different from them. I knew about how old she was, but she always appeared much older—not only physically but in attitude. She seemed more like an adult than a child. She did laugh, but not much. She seemed quite concerned with adjusting the behavior of her younger brother. Her clothes seemed to me to be adult clothes rather than teenager clothes. She was always kind to me, however, and I liked her. After college she became a professional librarian, a situation that seemed to me to be a perfect fit for her. While still a boy, I borrowed a book from her personal collection, and she had pasted an envelope in the back with a library card I had to sign.

During these holiday meals, BJ sat at the children’s table, though she scurried about the kitchen helping during the meal preparation while the rest of us younger played. She acted like an adult, in other words. I suspect she was rather mortified to have to sit with us kids during the meal; after just a few years, she graduated to the adult table.

We children all grew up and BJ became ill. She was transferred to a hospital near where I was living, and her parents left their teaching jobs to come and care for her. It was my first experience with a serious illness of someone I knew well. My grandparents were becoming fewer, but BJ was barely in her thirties. I learned a lot.

It was October and the baseball World Series was on; the local team was one of the two remaining teams. Television sets in the hospital broadcast the game and I could follow the progress while walking down the hospital hall and listening in.

I know now that I was watching BJ die. I visited frequently and, at first, she recognized me but that began to end. My memory specifically considered the way her father behaved as he, too, watched her leaving. At one point, the medical people decided to move her to a different room for better attention and care. It was to be several minutes before the transport helpers could arrive to move her bed. Unwilling to wait, her father put one of his arms under her legs and the other under her shoulders and picked her up as he would a baby. He turned and left the room, walked down the fall, and put her in the bed in the new room. It was an illustration of parental love that I will never forget.

BJ died a few days later. My memories of her at the children’s table bookended at a funeral. There were several librarians in attendance. 

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain