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Normally, on the day after a Chicago Bears “Monday Night Football” game, there would be considerable space devoted to the contest. And in the case of their 45-28 victory against the Dallas Cowboys, there would be talk of postseason possibilities and whether even a healthy Jay Cutler could perform better than backup Josh McCown has. Not today.
Normally, on the day after the Bears retired Mike Ditka’s No. 89, there would be tales or photos or both about that. Not today.
Rob Harris
Normally, on the day of the Chicago Luvabulls holding a reunion and honoring longtime director Cathy Core whose departure was orchestrated for after the 2012-13 season, there would be considerable anticipation of attending the event at the Bulls game. Not today.
Sadly, today is not normal. Actually, sadly does not begin to describe it.
Today is the day after Robert Alan Harris died. He died in a hospital in St. Louis, where he grew up and graduated from Washington University, was married, raised a family and lived reasonably happily ever after.
Who?
In sports terms, he was a former Khoury League (the St. Louis equivalent to Little League) all-star catcher and a varsity tennis player at University City High School.
In more grownup terms, he was a successful stock broker with Stifel Nicolaus and Company, among other firms of consequence. He had a wife, a son and a daughter. He was a good person, a loving husband and father, father-in-law, grandfather and uncle.
He was smart — both in the book and real-life sense. He was a fantastic storyteller who had an amazing assortment of jokes that he employed when he sold pharmaceuticals for St. Louis-based Pfeiffer Co. and would go to drugstores in Arkansas and inform the owners that the company was discontinuing its worm medicine so the druggist better order as much as he could. He kept some of the more risque jokes — ones that he no doubt told during his days as a man of the cloth, selling slacks (I think I still might have a pair or two of those plaid 1970s Mr. Fashion pants around somewhere) — for times when he had ascertained the audience’s sensibilities would not be offended.
Robert Harris was 65. He celebrated — if that’s the accurate description — his last birthday in the hospital. He was a fighter who battled leukemia and underwent a bone-marrow transplant that appeared to be successful. Until it no longer was. So he underwent a second transplant. He understood the procedure could kill him. He also understood that without undergoing the procedure he would die. He was a man who valued life and yearned to hold onto it as long as possible.
He was a man of many skils from the kitchen to landscaping and beyond.
He was a man of many friends, many of whom are similar kind souls.
He was a man of principle and a man of charity. He was a man of faith and went through the Bar Mitzvah process as an adult.
More than that, more than anything (well, certainly as far as I am concerned), he was my brother.
To say I — among so many others — will miss him is an understatement.
As I have grown older, the number of relatives, friends and acquaintances dying has increased. When death occurs, my reaction tends to be like that of many others: a renewed awareness of our own mortality.
When I found out my brother died, I felt not that mortality; I felt loss. The loss of my best friend, the person who knew me better than I knew myself. The person who would do anything for me and for whom I would do anything.
The numbing sensation that accompanies death will subside. The tears will flow without warning. The memories will live on.
Normally, today I would be driving to the United Center for the Bulls game and to see familiar faces (and other body parts) of those who used to dance for the Luvabulls. Not today. Instead I drive today to St. Louis to bury my brother.
Long after the last shovel of dirt has covered his grave, I will find a moment of quiet. His voice will call out, as it did so many times for so many years: “Hi, E. It’s your brother.”
As if I wouldn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the phone.
I will marvel at the clarity of cell-phone service from heaven. And I will thank god once more for having a brother like no other.
It is impossible to verify — although considering I knew him for every day he was alive, I like to think I have a fairly good idea — but I think my brother would have approved of running these videos: