Dear Uncle Jack

You've now been dead for a greater portion of my life than you were alive.  I find that so hard to believe, because you are just right here, you know.  It is still pure reflex to me to wonder what you would think of something.  I frequently find myself looking at things through your eyes. 

When I was a kid, you were Christmas.  And I guess, no matter how old you get, to some extent Christmas is always what it was when you were little.  I remember one Arkansas Christmas in particular. It was snowing like hell and it was beautiful.  I can still see you coming through my front door, the snow coming down behind you.  You're walking toward me with your smile and big snowflakes on the shoulders of your navy cashmere coat.  You were so handsome, so young, and so happy to see us. 

I'll never forget the boxes of presents shipped from New York and the excitement of collecting you at the airport.  Or the time you bought me a red leather mini-skirt in 1986, when I was 13 and built like an 8 year-old boy.  I looked up at you to say thanks and you weren't watching me, you were watching my dad, your brother.  You just loved pissing him off, especially if it also meant making me happy.

I wish you could have met Adam.  You guys would have had a substantially serious connection, I think.  And probably a few rows, too, because he's just as clever as you were, and that would have really annoyed you and thrilled you.  You'd be happy to know it is now his job to scoff at my provincial ways. 

I remember how, on your death bed, you called the hymn-singing Mennonites "Mormonites" and asked if they could do "Stand by Your Man."  You were a riot.  And you were so brave in those final days.  I hope that I can do that for my nieces and nephews some day -- make them laugh while I'm dying.

After you died, I wished we had an audio recording of your laugh.  Then I had Franny and Henry, and, when they really get going, I can hear your laugh in theirs.  I wish you were here to dote on Franny and Henry the way you doted on me, and to keep them in (and out of) line. 

I live here, now.  I have for five years.  Adam works in the city.  Hardly a day goes by that I don't feel in the pit of my stomach how you would have been here, and we there, all the time.  We would have been laughing and laughing and talking and arguing, and my whole family would have been better off for it.

Did you know that HIV is no longer a death sentence here in the first world?  Do you know how very narrowly you missed the antiretroviral treatment that makes this possible?  I do.  And it breaks my heart.

Comments

[scrob]

you and i should've just gotten hammered today. read my blog.

[ozma]

I read somewhere that we start to stop missing the people who are gone at some point. I think that this is just not so.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry he didn't make it until the medicine came. Not just sorry for you, but sorry in general.

[lorraine]

I didn't know I knew him, but I do now. In your face, smile, laugh the way you move through the world. Thank you for sharing, I know you will always miss him, but am so glad you see him in Franny and Henry.
Merry Christmas love you all!!!!!!!!

[Jennifer]

Just to say...
love.

[caroline]

You just made me cry with this. I love everything about you, you know.