This is not eloquent or planned...I just made a connection with a book, and I thought I'd explore it...
I wouldn't call my uncle Bill's death 'untimely'. My uncle Bill was just entering his 80s and had been ill for some time. The last time I visited him, his 6-foot body was quite frail at a meager 130 pounds. You may remember reading something about that on my MySpace blog. He still had his pleasantness about him, even though he could have been angry that he would soon be taken from everyone in his family. He was decently aware, despite the Alzheimer's. He may not have been able to speak all that loudly or know all of our names if tested, but he always knew that we were family and that we belonged near him.
Several people spoke at the service. First, a chaplain from the hospice center read some prepared statements from several family members and friends. The first was from an old military buddy whom he had befriended during WWII while they both were still in boot camp. This man couldn't make the trip, but he let us all in on how they had formed two lives that intertwined so many people and decades. The man had actually set up my uncle on a blind date with his fiancee's best friend, Shirley (my aunt). We listened to stories about golf outings and my uncle's hideous plaid and patchwork golf pants.
These same pants also showed up in the tale from my uncle Gary. He relayed how he and my dad spent so much time with my aunt and uncle as kids (my dad was actually born after my aunt and uncle married - how crazy is that!?!). He made up nicknames like Gar-hart and Will-helm and called them both 'girls'. My uncle and my father, being the youngest of seven, grew up with my uncle Bill being a brother to them - not a brother-in-law. He was always a fixed point in the family. As they grew older, he took them golfing, and my uncle Gary would make fun of the ugly golf pants my uncle seemed to treasure.
My cousins, Uncle Bill's daughters, spoke next. I wasn't expecting K. to share a funny story about her parents and their odd forms of fighting, but it was good to remember that they were both extremely unique people. During an argument one year, my aunt left to go shopping. She found a carved piece of wood in the shape of a hand flipping the bird. She bought it and would move it around the home at eye level to signal that she was upset with him. While this sent a message, it in turn, helped her find humor in the most frustrating situations. T. spoke next and used her time to share more sentimental ideas that she isn't really known for expressing. The loss of her husband in a semi v. man accident in 2005 has definitely made her a much more compassionate person. I've always known her to be brash and a little detached from emotion, but it simply poured out of her.
My uncle was cremated and the urn sat on a counter near a poster covered with images from his life. The pants even made it, although they are now sealed in a glass frame.
The annual family golf tournament, which has always been a "quest for the pants", is now to be named after my uncle. Many of my uncles and one cousin have "won" this award. My father won them, even, and decided to 'slim down' so that he could actually put them on. Those hideous plaid and patchwork pants have been passed on, year after year, from relatives to friends and back again. These pants have united generations within my family, and I am grateful that the men will continue to have something that my uncle Bill could leave behind - not only an annual golf tournament prize but a sense that they belong to something larger.
No comments:
Post a Comment