Uncle Gilbert Gone

A Eulogy for Gilbert. A remembering and an honoring of his life.

This morning, August 24, 2010, Uncle Gilbert died. He was born on August 24, 1919. So he came to earth and went home to heaven on the same day, just 91 years apart.
This jovial kind man grew up on an Oklahoma dirt farm. His father was blind, his mother industrious. They raised Gilbert, the baby, Myrtle the second child, and Haskell, my father.
Haskell told me that when they all went out to work in the fields, they would wrap sugar up in a rag and give that sugar tit to Gilbert then put his shirt tail under the bed leg so he couldn’t get away or get hurt. A sugar tit.
The close family loved each other no matter what happened. They helped each other through all kinds of trials and heartaches. I just love remembering them all from going up to Oklahoma City for holidays. Without fail, the snow would start to fall after Christmas as I looked out the rear window of the pink station wagon as we drove home to Houston.
There is a picture of me, holding Baby Brenda, Gilbert’s only child, when I was five. I sat on Granny Armitage’s striped couch with that precious bundle. The two granddaughters, the brothers’ two kids. I had a brother, older, and Brenda had a half-brother, older.
I just want to say, so the universe all can hear, that Gilbert Wayne Armitage was a wonderful human being. Eyes always smiling, hugs always ready, agreement with men and life in his tone. “Well . . .” is what he’d say.