Has To Be Said

June 23, 2026

He won’t like it.

My brother.

My brother John won’t like that I write about him. 

He doesn’t like to talk about himself. Hell, he doesn’t much like to talk. 

He is a man of few words and the few that he shares seldom, if ever, center on himself. A mathematician by education and a physician by profession, he views language wth suspicion, accepts it as an unfortunate necessity to impart information but enjoys it so long as it is used well and sparingly so as to demonstrate what he believes the highest virtue of man.

A quick wit.

At this, the latter, he is very good.

I have always looked up to my brother, literally and figuratively. John is five years older and 5 inches taller than me. (I’m not bitter.) He was born John Calvin Jackson, IV. Our father was John Calvin Jackson III. John’s son is John Calvin Jackson V and his grandson is John Calvin Jackson VI. 

They call him “Six.”

III taught IV and, I suspect, V will teach VI that the best way to avoid conversation is to get the person to whom you are speaking to talk about himself. This has four desired effects. First, it is a subject near and dear to the speaker’s heart. Second, fascinated by the subject, the speaker will gladly overlook and unknowingly make up for your lack of participation. Third, when you part ways, the speaker will, on reflection, know little or nothing about you, but curiously like you for reasons he can’t explain.  And fourth, if you listen…truly listen…you will learn a lot more than if you speak and find, as dad did, that most people …surprisingly…have a good story to tell.

Given his tendency to say little, it’s ironic that my earliest memories of John are of his voice. Often speaking up when I was too frightened to speak for myself.

We shared a bedroom throughout our childhood. John slept in the top bunk: I slept below. His bedtime was later than mine, but most nights he would crawl into the top bunk and listen patiently as I prattled on. Occasionally, he would answer a question, but it was his quiet presence that conveyed…more than words might…that I need not fear and all would be well.

When you are the younger brother, there is a comfort that comes with knowing, if tongue tied, your big brother will speak up for you. Take, for example, the obligatory Christmas morning phone call when, prompted by our mother, John, Linda and I would each thank our grandparents for a sweater we were likely never to wear again. On those occasions, John would do all the talking and my role, third in line to take the phone receiver, was merely to parrot what he said and quickly pass it back to Linda.

As a little boy, I was nervous around my dad. He traveled a great deal for his work and, although he was a kind and gentle man, he was often not home. I never felt entirely at ease when it was just he and I, one on one. Thankfully, that seldom happened as I was typically at John’s side and John could do the talking for me.

Usually, if the “three men” were off on our own, John would, as the oldest, be summoned to the front seat of the station wagon, and I, thankfully, would watch and listen from the warm and dark comfort of the back seat. 

Once, on a fishing trip, John suffered a migraine, and dad called me to the front seat so John might lie down in the back. I will never forget what came to be known as the “Plaid Thermos Affair.”

You see, Dad had a plaid thermos for his coffee and typically John would pour when asked. When John fell asleep in the back, the job fell to me.   This was a responsibility for which I was not prepared and should have been assessed as hopelessly unqualified

Uhhh, dad?

You do realize I’ve never done this before. Right?

“Nothing to it?” you say.

Unscrew the cap? Hold the cup with my left? Pour with my right?

While we’re moving?

John!!!! 

John lives in Nevada City. I live in Petaluma. Before my Parkinson’s, John and I would occasionally get away, just the two of us on a golf junket. Once to Ireland. Once to Wisconsin. Often, on the road, in the hotel, on the course, we would not say much, and I sometimes wonder if an observer might have thought it odd that two brothers, as close as we are, were so quiet. 

That’s just our way. We have grown accustomed to shared silence. Though alone in our thoughts we are not alone in our fears. We can listen to the other without either of us saying a word.

And so it was odd last week when I felt my phone vibrate and looked to see that it was not John, but his wife Sue calling.  While visiting his kids and grandchildren in Seattle John had suffered a stroke.  Not life threatening. Not permanently incapacitating. No facial droop. No speech impairment. 

But the stroke was more than mild. (He had diagnosed himself, correctly, on the ambulance ride to the hospital.) John could not walk unassisted, and his left arm would, without warning, levitate, rising from the bedside to float above his head.

Linda and I flew to Seattle and found our big brother, as we knew we would, surrounded by his wife, three children, and his newest grandson, Lachlan, age 4 months. The hospital is first rate. The doctors and staff are excellent. They have John in intense rehab several hours a day and already he has progressed to where he can walk with a cane a short distance on his own.

He entertains the hospital staff like Bob Wiley in What About Bob?, makes fun of himself as he tackles rehab, and will gladly demonstrate for anyone who might assist, how he can intercept with his open mouth a levitating left hand holding a chocolate covered almond.

I asked him to take a photo of his bedside white board so that we might visit or call during a break in his rehab schedule. If you look closely, you will see his daily grind, but it is more telling to look at what John is watching on the TV…

Andy Griffith and Barney Fife.

John will tell you Andy and Barney have more important information to impart than anyone on CNN.

The problem with being a physician is that you make a lousy patient. You know too much. You know the right things to ask and the wrong things to learn.  

And the problem with having John Jackson as your brother is that you don’t know if what he’s not saying is John just being taciturn John or John not wanting to frighten those he loves with stuff he knows. Both are his nature.

I like to think I can read John’s silence. We have shared silence for so long I like to think I can hear what he won’t say.

He is not one to be dramatic; he tends more toward the pragmatic. And I think that while he is disappointed, he is not daunted. I think he knows that as minor as this setback will prove to be in the grand scheme of things, it may be just enough to prevent him from doing the little things he hoped to do. Like walking the dogs. Shooting hoops with Six. Playing shitty golf. Driving from Nevada City to Davis to shoot the shit with his brother and sister and talk about the old days over a pastry or two.

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect one of the little things he planned to do and now, living in Seattle, may not, is to drive to Redwood City to give his brother shit after brain surgery and talk about the weak minds that seem to run wild in the Jackson men.

Although he will not say it,  and I suspect he never will, I think John fears this setback may hamper him from helping those he loves.  He is not afraid of dying; he’s afraid of not showing up before he dies.

That’s what a husband, a dad, a granddad, and a big brother are supposed to do. Look after the little ones. 

Speaking for myself, he needn’t worry.  

It doesn’t matter if it’s Seattle or Redwood City, I already know he’s there and looking after me.

He always has. He always will.