My Uncle

Yesterday my Uncle died. It was a long struggle with cancer that began just before we saw him on our cross-country journey last summer. I will be traveling to North Dakota to be with family next week, but it feels strange to be so far away right now, going on with my daily routine, defering grief.

Though Uncle was a man of few words face to face, he was famous for his long letters. I don't think he felt a proper letter could be less than 10 pages. I received my last letter from him after he had already fallen into a coma. It was very upfront about the realities of his pain and the short time left to him, and descriptive (as his letters always were) about the daily routines of his life, now in the nursing home where he would spend his last days. I am slowly letting go of my sadness that my last two letters to him are probably in a pile of unopened mail, arriving too late.

I spent the rest of the night last night with the big box of letters I pulled out of our storage room, pulling out the plain white envelopes with Uncle's distinctive handwriting on the envelopes. I don't think it was easy for him to write. He worked at those letters. Suddenly I am exceedingly grateful for each one.