the past couple of weeks have been very hard on me physically and emotionally. i have lost two of the most influential individuals in my life. both were extremely different individuals on every level. yesterday morning i heard the heartbreaking news that we had lost my uncle after years of battling dementia, a form of alzheimer. what an awful disease to be stripped of your memories and who you are.
yesterday, and this morning i have been trying to figure out exactly how to describe my uncle. for those that knew him they can understand why, and for those of you that don't, i can't put all of it down in a blog about CHRIST. his mouth sometimes said more than what it should have, and he could always achieve the shock value if he wanted to.
when i was a little girl i was terrified of him. i would always ask my mother if he was going to be there for the holidays, or in puerto rico where he would go every year. he would call me "little miss muffett" and i hated that. i laugh about that now. our relationship came full circle when i spent my first summer away from home living and working with him. how one summer changes everything. i found out that he had a heart. this is still one of the best summers of my life.
my uncle was one of the most generous and giving men i knew, almost to a fault. he would not hesitate to give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. always though with some questions as to why you would need it. he worked very hard his entire life and certainly lived life to the fullest. he traveled to many places that most of us will never see in our lifetime.
there is a memory that i have of my uncle that only i have. one year after christmas i was with him in puerto rico and we were in a church in old san juan. as we were getting ready to leave the church for dinner i had walked a head of him and i turned to see if he was coming or not. when i did turn back i saw him place a large sum of money in the poor box. i still to this day do not know if he knew i saw him or not. when you are in your early twenties this makes an impression, but as you get older you realize the significance of an event like this. i often wonder how many people he helped without the rest of us knowing.
my uncle wasn't always the nicest man. he had his faults, but he made up for those in how he loved. he loved his family and friends dearly. he would have done anything for us and he usually did. he didn't always make the right choices, but who does. we had our disagreements, but i never doubted his love for me. i loved him dearly. i accepted him for who he was and he accepted me.
i have been mourning him from my life for a long time because of his illness and i know now that he is at peace. he never would have wanted to live that way, but that doesn't me it makes it any easier for those that have lost him. when i did see him, it was always heart wrenching to know that he didn't even know who i was any longer. i think about his brothers and sisters and how awful it was for them to watch their brother that was so full life at one time be gone mentally to them, but his body was still there.
so many of us have our memories of him and that is what we will always have; the good ones.
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