Tuesday..............

I had some funny stuff about Hawaii, but I haven’t felt like posting. We knew that my uncle had prostate cancer, but my Mom just got a letter from him and I think it’s much worse than he lets on. By the time he was diagnosed it had metastasized to the nearby bone. Anyway – his sisters convinced him to move in to his eldest sister’s house while he is receiving treatment.

I think I have a pretty solid view of life and death and our place in the universe. I don’t pity him, I know he’s very peaceful and enjoying the opportunity to spend time with family and attend to some hobbies, he won’t leave behind a wife and kids. I know he'd feel bad if he knew I were sad… and yet… I’m totally heartbroken. There are people I need to tell (V), but I can’t even talk about it.

He lived with us for a while when I was little. He immediately learned to swear and it amused me no end that he would flavor his stories with forbidden words like, “My friends call my car the ‘shit-vette’!” He was probably the first “grown-up” to converse with me like I was a normal human. Being the youngest in a large family he is just a little older than my oldest cousin so I was surprised to hear he is 60 because I’ll always see him as the young, handsome, laughing uncle.

And so
I am grateful I have the chance to let him know how much I love him and how important he is to me. We always have this chance with everyone we love, but we usually don’t realize it.
I am grateful he’ll never have to go through a long lingering twilight of old age, decrepitude, uncertainty and loneliness.
I am grateful he is my uncle and I got to know him enough to miss him, if he weren’t so important I wouldn’t be so heartbroken.

I know he loved it here and he wrote, “I don’t know if I’ll get to visit again and see those white mountains” so I will do it for him. I will watch the sun come up behind the icy peaks to infuse pale color into the sky, and I’ll turn my back to the road and look over a million acres of snow on black trees. In summer I’ll leave the car and climb into the fog of the mountain pass to photograph the tiny defiant flowers, I’ll take my fishing rod out like we did when midnight is purple twilight and I won’t feel sorry for the goddamn fish. When you’re better I’ll bring you your guitar waiting silently for you nearly 20 years now or else I’ll learn to play it myself. Right now I can do the changes for Buck Owens’ “Pfft! You were gone” on the uke which is a far cry from classical guitar…but I’m working on it!

Last time I saw you we said, "mata ai masho, neh", let's meet again, ok?

Let's meet again.