My siblings and I lost our brother Frank this past November.  Like so many families who have lost loved ones during this pandemic , we have not yet been able to gather and pay proper respects to his passing.  When conditions are more favorable and the restriction on the number of attendees is lifted, there will be an inurnment at the Cape Canaveral National Cemetery.  Meanwhile, it feels strange not to honor his life in some way, so I’m using this post just to highlight a few memories that I have of my brother Frank.

Frank was 17 and a senior in high school when I was born.  So I don’t remember ever living in the same household with him.  My memories of him revolve around visits home that he made, family reunions and events we both attended, times that he came here to relieve me from caring for our mother, and one visit Big Eagle, Danny, Cara, and I made to his home when he lived in California.

Avid Golfer

For as long as I can remember Frank loved to golf!  One of the highlights of all of our family reunions was the big golf tournament.  Everyone in the tournament tried hard to win the coveted W. L. Harwood Reunion Golf Jacket.  The champion would take the jacket home, have his name and the year he won embroidered on the front, and keep it until the next reunion.  It was always quite the competition!

 

In the picture above are three of my brothers, (L to R) Steve, Tom, Frank, then Big Eagle, and then my dad, Winston Lloyd Harwood, holding the jacket.

If I’m not mistaken Frank won the jacket twice: once in 1984 and the other time in 1994.  Here he is just after having it bestowed upon him in 1994:

 

 

NASCAR Fan

 

Frank was also a big NASCAR fan!  Big Eagle and I used to camp at Texas Motor Speedway twice a year during the NASCAR weekends.  Frank came from California a couple of times and met us out there for one of the race days.  In the photo above Frank, Big Eagle, and David (a relative visiting from England) have their coolers packed and are ready to head from the campsite up to the speedway.  The other time that Frank went to the races with us, our son Danny was able to join us, too.  Good memories!

 

Coin Collector

Coins fascinated Frank!  He loved to handle them and study them.  Searching for coins to add to his collection was one of his favorite pastimes for years.  Not only would he purchase them for himself, but he often gave them as gifts, too.

He gave me this nickel ornament one year, and I think of him every year when I hang it on our Christmas tree.

 

 

Music

Frank could listen to music for hours!  He loved country music, and would play it from Sirius channels.  Frank is the reason I have Crazy Arms and City Lights by Ray Price in my I-tunes collection.  I remember when I wanted to buy a particular song by a Texas singer/songwriter named Kevin Fowler, and I couldn’t find it anywhere at the time.  I mentioned it to Frank once when we were discussing country music.  A few days later, he sent me a link to the song!  I couldn’t believe how he made it his mission to find it for me.

 

Singing

In my opinion, all of my brothers have good singing voices.  And I always enjoy when one of them breaks out in song.  One of my favorite memories of Frank that often comes to mind when I think of him is of him singing.  It was at our 2000 family reunion.  Someone had brought a karaoke machine, and one night we had a karaoke night.  At one point Frank stood up and sang (without the machine, just acapella) some old Irish-sounding ditty.  I don’t know the name of it, but here are the lyrics of the last stanza:

“The moral of the story is if you’re out on the beach, and you should see a great big box, and it’s within your reach, don’t ever stop and open it up.  That’s my advice to you, cuz you’ll never get rid of the (clap, clap, clap) no matter what you do.”

The song required audience participation: the clap, clap, clap in every stanza.  I’ve always been able to picture him in my mind’s eye, standing in front of my mom and belting out the song in a room filled with relatives all enjoying the show.  I was thrilled when I found this picture of him doing just that:

 

“Sis”

Frank was the only one of my brothers that called me “Sis”.  I’m sure he called his other sisters “Sis”, too.  It’s another one of the things that I can hear still today when I think of him.  I always considered it a term of endearment, and I’ll miss hearing it.

In Closing

I grew up in a family of 10 children: 5 girls and 5 boys.  It’s actually something I’ve always been very proud of.  Ever since the youngest of us, my sister Pam, passed away in the early 80s, it’s always felt very strange to think of us as 9.  After that, whenever someone would ask how many brothers and sisters I had, I could never just say 8.  It didn’t feel right.  I would always have to add that it had been 9, but one was no longer with us.

In the same way, it feels strange to think that I now have only 4 brothers.  Frank will always live on in my memory, just as Pam has, and in that way we will always be a family of 10 siblings in my mind.

Tomorrow, January 12th, would have been Frank’s 84th birthday.  Here’s to you, Frank!  Happy Birthday!