Unc

My mom and her older sister always called him what their parents called him: Junior. Seeing as he was named after his father, that made sense. My friends would inevitably chuckle the first time they heard me speak of my "Uncle Junior." And mom laughed about the way her "baby brother" now dwarfed her.

A lifelong bachelor, as far as I know he always lived with his parents. They were somewhat older when they'd started having children, and since he was the youngest of their three, my memories are of a devoted son taking care of elderly parents who had quite a few health issues, between Grandmom's weight and diabetes, and Granddad's hearing loss (related to WWI naval service) and frequent "spells." He'd usually drive them to our frequent family get-togethers. Thanksgiving was always at my aunt's family's big house, since it was easier for everyone to go there than for them to pack up my eight cousins and have the ten of us kids falling all over each other elsewhere. The Christmas routine was always the same: Grandmom, Granddad, and Unc (though we didn't really abbreviate his title until we were grown) always went to my aunt's house on Christmas Eve, came to ours on Christmas Day. A few days later the whole crew would be together for my sister's birthday, just as we'd been at a cousin's birthday a couple weeks before. With ten of us nephews and nieces, birthday parties were frequent.

Unc was my Confirmation sponsor. I never met my godparents, and I had so much respect for him that I didn't really consider having anyone else sponsor me. He was disappointed that the bishop didn't symbolically slap us on the cheek anymore by then, as had formerly been part of the ceremony. (It seems we've lost the idea of purposeful self-sacrifice and hardship, seeing the latter as something to be avoided in all contexts.)

I lost touch with them all for a while after getting married (a small ceremony, somehow without room for my cousins; how could I have let that happen?) and joining the service. Grandmom had died before I enlisted, and Granddad a few years after. While I was home for the funeral, Mom told me she and my stepfather were moving to Georgia, and subsequent visits to Maryland became centered on my wife's family. How easily I lost sight of the relationships that were so important to me growing up. I eventually realized my folly. Having finally dealt with some things I needed to from my childhood, I strove to recover the relationships I'd thrown out with the bath water. With Aunt Helen divorced (why did both sisters marry alcoholics?), she and Unc were by then sharing the same house at which we'd visited their parents on Sundays growing up for as far back as I can remember. On every trip home we began to make it a point to go by there for a while. It never really seemed like a long enough visit when the girls or the mrs. - or later, the grandkids - would start feeling restless already, and it would be time to leave behind again the sofa on which I'd slept over (eventually a new sofa in the same place), the lawn I'd mowed, the garden I'd weeded, the aunt and uncle I loved.

When my mom passed away, shortly after 9/11, her brother and sister took a train to GA for the funeral; there was just no way Helen was getting on a plane that soon after. You could amass a fortune betting on Amtrak to be late; I went to pick them up at the train station, anxiously waited for them to arrive, and drove them to the funeral home knowing that everyone was waiting for us so they could start the service. Afterward we had a nice lunch together at Mom's favorite joint, an Irish pub on the grounds of a winery a few miles from the house. My aunt helped us go through Mom's clothes so my stepfather wouldn't have to deal with that, and we headed for our respective homes in the next day or two. My aunt says that it was on the train back home that Unc first noticed blood in his stool.

I wonder if things might've been different for him if he'd been able to have the cancer surgery right away rather than urgently needing a multiple bypass first to survive it, or if he hadn't been the first family member to develop colorectal cancer, or if he'd started getting colonoscopies a few years before, as we now know we should. But his battle was valiant and he remained dignified and fun-loving throughout, getting to Atlantic City one last time this past summer, a couple years after one of his best gambling buddies had died. Unc had hated not being there for his funeral; John had died unexpectedly during one of Unc's worst hospitalizations.

I can't help but think I may have shirked my responsibility to him by not sharing the Lord's love more openly. St. Francis said, "Share the Gospel; when necessary, use words," and with some folks the words really are necessary. Yeah, I may have made a special trip or two home specifically to visit with him. In the hospital, we'd agreed that he'd tell me when he was ready for me to leave - which he expected to be after fifteen or twenty minutes - or I'd let him know when I was ready to go; somehow a couple hours flew by before either of us realized it. Or last November, for one last Thanksgiving; Unc may not have been cooking from scratch anymore, but having so many of us celebrating this holiday with him again was still a real treasure for all of us. At the party this summer, we knew we were probably together with him for the last time. As I tried to tell him how closely I was holding him in prayer, he never quite seemed to connect with just what I was trying to convey: how much the Lord loves him, how He longs be our strength and comfort in such challenging times.

Still, I hope Unc saw beyond my presence to the One who was leading me, each time, to be there. I hope he, too, felt the embrace of the One whose perfect Peace, beyond understanding, guards my heart and mind especially at such times as these, saying goodbye to one of the few really respectable men in this broken boy's life.

I pray the angels have escorted him home to a joyful reunion with his parents, sister, brothers-in-law, cousins, and dear friends who have preceded him, in jubilant rejoicing before the throne of glory of our loving God.