In Memoriam: Theresa Ricks Gupton, 1926-2003

Over six years have passed since I had to say my final farewells to an aunt I truly adored and loved with all of my heart. Theresa Charlyne Ricks Gupton lost her courageous battle with pancreatic cancer on May 12, 2003. She fell victim to the same horrible disease that also claimed my dear mother in 1996.

Aunt Terry will always have a special place in my heart, for she was such a special human being. A combination of spunk, wit, charm, humility and sincere concern for family and friends has never been sprinkled onto one individual in equal measures like it was on Terry Gupton. She and her husband, my father's younger brother Hank, were like second parents to me for the majority of my life. I will be forever grateful for all those two did for me when I was a child and young man.

They took me into their home in Baytown, Texas, in 1976 and allowed me to live with them free of charge when I attended Lee College in Baytown. The visits to West Columbia Hank and Terry and their children "Little Hank" and Angie made were always welcome and memorable to me, my parents and my siblings. I'm a very lucky man to have had my aunt and uncle as active participants in my life for as long as I did. Losing both of them to cancer was equally as unbearable as when my own two parents left me.

Pictured above are my aunt, Terry Gupton (at left), with her two children, my cousins Angie Middleton and Raybourne Ricks (Hank) Gupton. I took that photo in 1999 at Hank and Lynette's house in Anahuac when my family and theirs gathered for a memorable holiday meal and conversation. I can't recall if it was Christmas or New Year's but my father Rex went with my wife and kids and I to spend some time with Uncle Hank's family. Both my mother and Uncle Hank had passed on but I'm sure they were both looking down on us that day with satisfying smiles adorning their faces, happy that their two families were still spending time together.

My father received the blame for ruining Aunt Terry's plans to have everyone call her son "Ricky," as she had wanted. Given the name Raybourne Ricks at birth, the "Ricks" being his mother's maiden name, my cousin was still a baby when my father started calling him "Little Hank." And reportedly the nickname stuck like glue. So today, in his sixties, the Ricky Gupton my Aunt Terry wanted is still referred to by everyone he knows as "Hank." Since his father, the original Hank Gupton, has passed on very few still refer to him as "Little" Hank. With the exception of my brother and sister and I. "Little Hank" still survives to this day in conversations my siblings and I have about our beloved cousin.

Hank and Terry Gupton lived in West Columbia for many years before my uncle was transferred to Ganado by Exxon, his longtime employer. When my mother Verna Gupton was pregnant with my brother Cody, Terry Gupton was also pregnant with her daughter Angie. Aunt Terry used to tell me stories about the two of them, she and my mother, making trips together to see their "baby doctor" in either Bay City or Wharton, I don't remember which. My brother Samuel Cody Gupton arrived first, having been born on October 30, 1953. Angie Kyle Gupton was born less than a month later, making her grand entrance on November 21, 1953.

Angie was just a small child when her family lived in West Columbia, but her big brother Hank attended elementary school in my home town and can really entertain the rest of his cousins who live in West Columbia with a multitude of comical and touching stories from his memory bank of having spent the bulk of his childhood here. Hank and my cousins Dolores, Peggy Lou and Kirby have an advantage over Angie, Denise, Cody, Kelli and myself by being older. They all spent much more quality time with our grandparents and the many aunts and uncles from that generation who were either dead and gone or very old when the younger members of our family came along. I envy each of my older cousins for that.

Borrowing from her obituary from The Baytown Sun, the following words sum up with perfection just how Terry Gupton truly was: "Her family was the heart of her being and she was theirs. Her home was always a haven of serenity and sanity for her children and their spouses. They all considered her their best friend, their advisor and their anchor. She was the definition of grace in adversity."

I love you, Aunt Terry! No words could ever accurately describe how much you meant to me nor how deeply you are missed.

Today, June 10, 2009, is the 21st birthday of Kevin Williams of West Columbia, the son of my very good friends, Bobby Williams and Angela Williams. Angela kept our children at her house when they were young so that Peggy and I could hold down full-time jobs and raise three boys simultaneously. She was like a second mother to Brian, Bret and Blake. Angela and Bobby's oldest son Chris is one year older than our son Brian, and those two practically grew up together as brothers. The same could be said for our youngest son Blake and Kevin Williams.

Kevin is less than two months younger than Blake, who was 21 on April 26th. I find it extremely difficult to believe that those two youngsters are now old enough to legally buy beer. And I'm sure that Blake and Kevin both waited until their 21st birthdays to take their first tastes of alcoholic beverages. I know I did! And if you believe that perhaps I could interest you in some valuable swamp land I have for sale.

Kevin is photographed (by the Gupster) in 1998 when he was 10 years old playing soccer. He and our son Blake were both excellent soccer players when they were children, and both played for Columbia High School's varsity soccer team. I cherish the many memories I have of my children playing soccer, baseball, basketball, football and tennis, as well as participating in track and field events during their days growing up in West Columbia. Bobby and Angela's kids were always thought of as just more of our own, and it always meant a lot to Peggy and I that they thought the same of our children.

So today, June 10, 2009, I wish Kevin Williams a very happy 21st birthday, wherever he may be out in that cruel world we all simply try to survive in. I love you, kid! Come see us sometime.