Music Filled the Air That Night

In the wake of finding out my uncle is dying of terminal brain and lung cancer, I realize this will be the first time in my mature, adult life that someone close to me will be leaving this realm and entering the beyond. I have feared this for a while now, knowing it would happen, just not when. Over the years I’ve been feeling sorry for other families while they deal with the deaths of loved ones and in the back of my mind, there’s this nagging, when will it be my turn to feel this way? The last time an immediate family member passed away I was a freshman in college (my other uncle). I remember being sad but distracted with my coming of age, college, independence and drinking. Death was kind of this surreal thing and its impact just didn’t sink in. It was like I was on the peripheral. In fact, my first uncle’s death affects and hurts me more now upon reflecting on it than it did when it happened. I guess that comes with age.

So now, this is all much more valid and poignant. Shit got real basically and…uh…it really fucking hurts. I’m scared and confused and I don’t understand the why. Furthermore I don’t understand why Death makes us feel this way when it is inevitable to all of us and happens every day. I guess because it is the ultimate End. In death, words like Never, Last, and Forever are used. I’ll never see him again. This is the last time I’ll see him. He is gone forever. It is finality to the greatest extent. And not knowing what comes after death just perpetuates the fear. As long as there is time and life, then there is hope. When it ends, when it ends, the hope is replaced with grief and mourning. Hope is swallowed up by the Never and Last.  Hope is gone, Forever.

Today I call my aunt to tell her that her brother is dying. I don’t know how you tell a person that. I’m going to need to clarify that it is Brother John and not some arbitrary John. Remember the timeline, ER on Sunday, diagnosis Monday, going home today. No treatment, 6-8 weeks, his kids don’t know yet. It’s outlined in my head but I feel like when I say it out loud, it will become a jumbled, incoherent mess, like in the movies. “John’s kids went to the ER 6-8 weeks ago and they’ll come home Monday.” Do I tell her about the tumors? I should tell her about the tumors. I’m nervous, scared and praying for strength. Dear God just let me get it out in one sentence. Don’t let me ramble and rumble, for both our sakes. I just need one, articulate sentence.

So here it is, my turn. My family and I are now the subjects of others’ “thoughts and prayers.”  Uncle John will soon be gone. We’ll have pictures to remember him by, the memory of him carving the Thanksgiving turkey and always being chosen as the Grace-sayer during family dinners. I imagine him and my Uncle Geege pulling each other’s fingers at the Pearly Gates. Pickled deer heart will never taste the same. There’s that damn word, never.