remembering

I have been with my uncle in New York City, Washington, DC; Williamsburg, VA; Nags Head, NC; Houston, TX; New Orleans, LA; Phoenix and Overgaard, AZ; Eindhoven, Netherlands; Brugge, Belgium. Given that he lived and usually traveled alone, that may be more different places than anyone else.

He was never all that easy to get along with, and tended to hold grudges against people; Ted and I may have been the only ones in the family he really approved of, because we’re the only other ones who have traveled much. He and my brother were also alike in enough ways to annoy each other and different in enough ways to not quite understand each other (Uncle Larry really valued places and experiences over people, Alex is the opposite). He didn’t particularly understand my mom in some ways (another people person and another homebody) but he loved her more than he did anyone else still alive, for their shared history and shared tastes. They got on each other’s nerves in a short time, but loved remembering old stories and music, and people long before my time.

He idolized his parents and missed them every day from their deaths in 1985 and 1995; he’ll be cremated and buried with them, which was a happy thought for him and is for the rest of us.

He and I were always close; I was born in a hospital near where he was in college, so he used to visit me and Mom every day – some of the nurses thought he was my father! He was in Vietnam when Alex was born, and used to send us letters with sketches of what he thought my mom looked like pregnant. (And comments like “Actually, that looks more like a turtle.” ) He’d been all over the world, probably more places than I have, though I have the advantage in continents. My first trip to NY was to visit him when he lived there and so was my first trip to DC; when I was 13 he took me to WIlliamsburg, VA and then on to Nags Head, NC, and it was the furthest I’d been from home.

His other passion, besides travel, was food. I can tell you I had Welsh Rarebit in Williamsburg, because I’d never had it before and because it was made with beer – very exciting for me at 13. But he could tell you (and did!) about what he ate in Paris in 1972, or in London in 1965 – I think he remembered everything he ever ate. He wasn’t a snobbish gourmet, just appreciated all kinds of food. It is unfortunate that he wasn’t well enough to visit us here, because he’s the only family member who really would have, and he’d have been likely to try anything from squid on a stick on down, though he might have drawn the line at pig brain soup or duck blood.

He lived 2.5 years after a diagnosis of 6-10 months, and liked to say he was the doctor’s ‘miracle patient’ but adenocortical cancer is brutal. (Also, the next person who implies in front of me that all you need to win the “battle” with cancer is a good attitude and a will to fight is going to have strips torn off them.) He fought, and he had the satisfaction of outliving expectations, but no fight was ever going to make a difference in the long run and he knew that from the start. NIH trials and the services from the National Hospice made it possible to live as long as he did and to stay in his own apartment as he preferred, and I’m grateful to both (and have donated to both over the course of the last two years). As a government retiree, fortunately he never had to worry about health care, and that also made these two and a half years possible – he had the sort of insurance everyone would have in a perfect world, plus a dose of luck in living so close to the NIH, almost the only place that has studies on this cancer. (I say perfect world only because I don’t know if it’s fiscally possible to everyone to have it in the real world – his was better than what I’ve seen in other countries – but hopefully we can get everyone at least most of the way there so anyone else with a dying relative can have at least that peace of mind.)

I used to tell him Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here” should be his theme song – that was his favorite kind of music anyway. I guess not anymore.