Song: Goodbye - Patty Griffin

I’ve only said the words out loud a couple times.  I’ve only told two people outside of my immediate family.  I’ve rejected the social media posts, and have mostly hidden myself away.  Despite a long illness, I am unready to face it: My uncle passed away.

At the time of writing this, it’s only been a few days, so I am striving to remind myself to give myself space and time to grieve.  I managed his illness the way I manage most things, through controlled anger.  Anger has always been easy for me.  Like so many other middle/working class white midwest families, we didn’t do emotions in our house, except anger and comedy.  So grief, sadness, loss -  I translate them through blame, frustration over “the little things,” or lighthearted jokes to keep myself from realizing I am always on the verge of tears.  And as I navigated months of momentous family shifts and a memorial for my grandparents, I also began readying myself for this loss. Or at least, that’s what I thought I was doing.

Mostly, I was avoiding it, waiting for those brief moments when I was alone in my home to let it settle in.  My aunt asked me to come visit, and despite being unsure of access to vaccines at the time, it was a non-negotiable to me.  (Luckily) 24 hours after my second shot, I was on a plane.  I spent 10 days back in Seattle, or, as it is saved in my Google Maps, “Home 2.”  My uncle was better than he had been, relatively present, joking, and engaged. I knew I was getting a prettier view than what was the norm, but I also knew this was going to be the last time I ever saw him, so I was glad for it.  But underlying it all, I was angry at him for getting sick.  There is no rhyme or reason to grief or the accompanying anger.  I didn’t lash out or do anything I regret.  I simply knew I blamed him for where he was, for the impact it was having on the family.  I didn’t know then that the anger was mostly about him leaving me.

He passed relatively shortly after I got home, but it was still a long month of hospice care and waiting for the phone call.  I didn’t sleep well for those weeks, my phone off silent next to me.  I knew no one would call me in the middle of the night, but I also didn’t want to risk it.   In the end, he passed at about 7:15 pm my time.  I did miss my cousin’s call.

Several folks have posted tributes to my uncle.  I haven’t been able to do it.  Initially, I thought it was still the anger.  As I reflected, I remembered a picture of the two of us, and began looking through Facebook to try and find it.  I wasn’t able to, but instead I found a treasure trove of reminders of how much he loved me.  Jokingly sitting on his lap like he was Santa Claus.  Him making a Christmas chain and taping it to my door for my first Christmas away from my immediate family, so that I would have that reminder of home.  And more than one picture of him in his State shirt, and me in my maize and blue.  

It was at this moment the anger shifted, and I began to feel what I had lost.  My “Washington Dad,” as my mom calls him, is no longer with us, and the pain strikes deep in my heart.  I looked at the picture taken of us after completing my master’s degree, and realized I won’t be able to recreate the picture if I decide to get my PhD.  It will be these little moments that will be the hardest.  But it will also be these moments in which he will be remembered.

My uncle was a poet, and while I am still too much in mourning to write something to capture his impact on my life, I do offer this.

I hope there are cicadas in Heaven.

I hope they ring clear on cool nights

Overlooking whatever celestial body of water

You find yourself at.

I hope all the sounds you have missed sing back to you

As uninjured knees and shoulders

Let you wander among the mountain-clouds,

Every songbird greeting you.

Or maybe none of these worldly pieces will entice you.

Perhaps that is the meaning of peace.