My Uncle Mitch died last night. He was my mother’s sister Carol’s husband. He had cancer and he had been sick for a long time.
He used to take me fishing when I would go the Poconos in the summer. He was a quiet guy and I liked him. I hadn’t seen him since I went to Pennsylvania for my sister’s wedding. That was nine years ago.
I questioned mentioning this. I often don’t write about the serious things that happen in my life as they happen. So much that happens in my life involves other people and I don’t know if their lives are game for me to talk about. I tend to focus on the trivial and the everyday things. It almost seems disrespectful to go from talking about my feelings about the beach (yesterday) to reporting my uncle’s death (today).
I suppose I’ve talked about death and the trivial and mundane back to back before. The irony is that the trivial, everyday things make up a life. They’re the things that you miss when you think yours might be taken away.
One of the things that I remember about the day my dad died was when they took him down to palliative care. They took him to a nice room and they played classical music from WXXI, his favorite radio station in Rochester. It was June and it was a beautiful day and my dad was an hour or two from dying. I looked out the window and saw some people just walking down the street, going about their days and they had no idea that a few hundred feet from them, someone was dying and that his son was right next to him becoming an orphan.
Today I ran five miles, watched the World Cup final, went to a nice town to walk around with my friends and my girlfriend. We got fried seafood and ice cream. We looked at boats, shopped, took some pictures. It was fun. We were going about our days.
But somewhere my aunt’s world was crashing down around her.
She had texted me the news late last night and I got it this morning. I called her and left a message. I texted. I didn’t hear back. She might need time to just be and not have to answer every call. She also might be pissed at my onslaught of anti-Trump stuff. Who knows.
I said about my parents dying that people always used to say to me, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through,” and I thought, you can, you just don’t want to. I still think that.
