An Uncle I've never met (Part 1)

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I am relating this story to you to the best of my ability. It was told to me several years ago now and age as well as understanding has changed my interpretation of the events as they were told to me. This happened to a family member that I have never met, and until this story, was never mentioned to me. In fact, we've not spoken of this relative nor of the events of the past since it's original telling. --- Her hands were shaking as she held the album in her lap, my finger pointing to the picture of the boy whose vacant eyes stared back at me. I had just asked my mother about the boy in several of the pictures in her album. Pictured beside the boy was my mother, her visage I had seen plenty of times in my grandmother's photo albums. "I've never seen this boy." I reiterated as my finger now tapped rhythmically on the plastic sleeve that separated the picture from my touch. "I've seen you around this age, mama, and I've seen my uncles and aunts but never this boy." My mother let out a audible sigh. One that I remember now as being of misery and defeat. At the time my young ears did not distinguish the different utterings that would tell of my mother's changing moods. "He was my brother." She finally exhaled, her hand going to remove my finger from the page before slamming the tomb shut. "We shouldn't speak of him." Of course my young and inquisitive mind would not hear of it, and so it was that she grudgingly told me what she could remember of the last night she saw her brother. "Dad had been going back up to the mountains to find work. The factory he had worked out in town had to be closed down and every other place he tried had wages that would not support our family. There were five of us kids plus mama and daddy. David (who is my uncle and her brother) was old enough to work but not fit for the task. He was smart, but mama often said that he was just a little too smart for everyone and quick to anger because of it." My mother closed her eyes and bowed her head, but I could see a tear glistening on her cheek. "Mama tried to do little tasks for money when she could. Mending for the elderly neighbors who couldn't get their fingers to work right, or tending to the children of the working mothers in our neighborhood. Every little penny helped but it was never quite enough. Mama persevered for a few months while daddy would send money down for us when he could, but then one night he himself came home. He had an awful pallor about him, and he was often wracked with coughing fits and severe chills he couldn't shake. This went on for several weeks before he finally shook what had fallen over him, but by then it was much too late.