Unforgettable...........

It’s been an emotionally draining weekend for me. I watched my uncle pass on. He had been ill the past few years. His body was all used up.

Uncle was a good man, who I was very close with. He was an athlete in his younger years playing basketball and baseball. As he aged, he loved to golf. Uncle was very loyal to the home teams he loved: the Green Bay Packers, the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Milwaukee Brewers. He also enjoyed college athletics: the Marquette Warriors (what is it now? the Golden Eagles??) and the Wisconsin Badgers. Every time I visited I’d find him sitting at the kitchen table watching some athletic event on the small TV. He also loved music. He had a great singing voice. I’m told that’s where I got my ability to sing. He loved Frank Sinatra and the old standards, as do I. But more than anything, he loved his wife and family. He and his wife were married for 55 years, but he would be quick to add that they went together for 7 years before they got married. They were high school sweethearts. He was a good father to his two daughters. And he was a good uncle, godfather, and friend to me. We shared certain physical traits and personality. We had a special bond.

I remember him dancing around the floor, me standing on top of his feet. I remember him yelling from the kitchen at Christmas time as I sat at the piano “play Silver Bells again”. I remember throwing the softball with him “you got a good arm kid”. When my mother, his sister, died in 1977 he told me that he would always be there for me, not matter what. He accepted and loved me for who I was, and loved my partner as he did any other family member. He often told me how proud my mother would be of me. He was always there for me. In the end, I was there for him.

When you leave the house and turn to give a quick kiss or hug to the ones you love, BE in that moment. You just never know…………………..