“October Light” (pencil, pastel, and watercolor. 2018)
I’ve intended, for some time now, to finish up this portrait of my Uncle Bobby (yes….Robert Lee Branch), who died, unfortunately, almost two years ago. He was my mother’s younger brother. Given my family’s singular circumstances (my father’s divorced mother was the boys’ matron at the small-town-Tennessee, Methodist orphanage where both of my parents and my mother’s siblings ended up in the late 1940’s) we’ve never had much of the traditional, dreaded “in-law” dynamic in my immediate family. My grandmother raised my mother, my father, AND my maternal-uncle…..from the time that they were all in elementary school. I was awfully fond of my Uncle Bobby, his wife (my Aunt Mary Ann), and their two girls, my cousins Kathy and Jennifer. They lived in Chattanooga (Two hours south of our hometown), had a MODERN (!) split-level house in a suburb (!!), and made brownies in the kitchen (!!!). Every time we went down to visit, when I was 8 or so, I felt as though we had managed to step RIGHT INTO A TELEVISION SHOW (!!!!!). Aunt Mary Anne was always particularly sweet and kind to my brothers and me. In any case, I eventually went off to college and, quite frankly, simply and stupidly (college was only 1.5 hours from their house) lost touch with them. I never knew Uncle Bobby in his old age or sickness…..which is my loss. In the years after college, I kept myself busily self-important as I skipped across various universities in far-flung places….and I’m sorry to think that I never sent so much as a postcard to them, although I heard news of them from my parents. My mother was (is, actually) particularly torn up about his death. So, I was glad to come across this Facebook photograph of him (taken late in his life, with his dog and his adorable, I think, old-man socks). I’ll be sending the portrait down to my cousin Kathy for her, her sister, and her mother. And here’s a song for Uncle Bobby….go to: https://www.youtube.com/