Great Uncle

Certain people just touch you deeply and don't let go without putting forth any effort. That's my great uncle. His heart is huge. I wish everyone could know him. I wish I could put it into better words.

But it's hard, because he died this morning and I can't stop crying, dammit.

I can swear to you that he didn't have a mean bone in his body. He had mental retardation, which is the term I was told when I was very young and thought that the reason he was hard to understand had something to do with the prosthesis hook on one arm. So I've always been comfortable with that term, probably because the first time I heard it and for quite some time thereafter, I heard it used properly. I gotta tell ya though, nothing bothers me more on this earth than some asshole slinging around the word "retard" to put down someone else as if they are the better person. They're not. Not ever. Don't fucking do it.

He lived in the same town he was born in for decades. Just about everyone knew him, and if anyone were to ever think of short-changing him at the store, or doing any thing bad toward him, they'd have a whole town to answer to.

His heart was huge. He once bought a boat when I was young just so he could take us out on the lake when we visited. The excuse was that it was for fishing, but this was no fishing boat.

The kids - the kids loved him. They thankfully were able to meet him a few times and they just naturally gravitated to him, and if that's not beauty ---

And those Christmas cards. Damn. I must have only seen him a few dozen times in my life on family visits, but I got those cards every year of my life from him. And every year, wherever I lived, whether I was five or thirty-five, he included a five dollar bill. Even when I was young, I never looked at that five dollars as inadequate. Somehow, it was huge in a whole other sense.

And he didn't just sign his name to the card. He wrote a note; a few sentences. You could tell, with the scraggly, labored writing that it must have taken him an awfully long time to write all that, but he did. Every single time, as long as he still had some eyesight left, he did it himself. I dunno. Just something about that writing, that five dollars, that consistency, that thoughtfulness, was always just the best gift I ever got every single year.

And now I won't get that any more. Which sounds selfish, but damn, it was certainly a wonderful annual reminder of what can be right in this often crappy world.

So I know this isn't eloquent or anything, but I just needed to say something because he died, and it sucks, and I'm going to miss him an awful lot.