Fold My Laundry Please

About a week and a half ago, I noticed the little light on my answering machine blinking.  I was in the middle of washing the dishes (I’m horrible about checking that thing when I walk in the door) so I took off my very attractive yellow rubber gloves and pressed play.

"Hi sweetie.  It’s your mother.  Listen.  Uncle Gene passed away today.  It would be really nice if you would send Aunt Clara a condolence card.  Call me back and I’ll give you the address."

My heart jumped into my throat and hot tears stung my eyes.  I put my rubber gloves back on and went back to doing the dishes.  My shoulders were shaking as I silently sobbed, but I didn’t stop scrubbing.  After all, it’s not like there was anything I could do to stop it from happening.  It was done, over.  And I didn’t need to be able to focus my eyes to clean cereal bowls.  My mind raced over other sad news I’ve received over the phone.  Zeppo (my childhood dog) had to be put down.  Julia has been rushed to the hospital for emergency heart surgery.  Jason shot himself in the head.  Jonathan’s been in a terrible car accident.  I rinsed the suds off of the glasses and silently cursed the telephone for taking so many loved ones out of my life. 

Uncle Gene had always been around.  He wasn’t actually a blood relative, but he and my dad had been best friends since grade school.  He was the lovable black sheep of the family.  The guy who always had a plan that was gonna work this time.  You want in on it?  You’ll be rolling dough!  But fortune never graced his pockets.  He had to keep grinding along in order to provide for his family, but the ideas were always flowing. 

I remember running around their house as a little girl with his daughter, giggling that shrieky sort of little girl laughter; just two miniature co-conspirators.  The two of us would go out back to the shed and watch while he and my dad sat around smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and soldering together circuit boards for some sort of machinery that I didn’t yet understand.  Probaby one of those com-pu-ter things you heard about on PBS. 

I remember one summer when Uncle Gene, Aunt Clara, and their two daughters came to our house for a visit.  Uncle Gene always had a sort of scruffy beard and mustache and longish, slightly unkempt hair.  I remember him holding up his baby daughter in the air and smiling and saying to her, "Can you say ‘de-lin-quent’?  Can you say ‘va-grant’?" and everybody laughing.  Funny thing, all of my memories of him involve laughter. 

Uncle Gene and my dad took me and a friend of mine to a Pink Floyd concert at Sundevil Stadium and both he and my dad called them "Pink Fricky" the whole time.  I can only imagine it was some sort of private joke - "You had to be there!" - from the 70’s.

Things were always "groovy" or "right on" with him. 

He was the photographer at my wedding, and I can’t thank him enough for the great pictures we have of the whole affair.

But the wonderful thing about that phone call was this.  Uncle Gene had been born with some sort of heart condition.  Doctors had told his mother all through his childhood that he wouldn’t live past 18.  He was almost 60 when he died.  Take that medical science!  And that was exactly the attitude he had about it, too.  Stickin’ it to tha’ man! 

So now here I am.  It’s 2:30 in the morning nearly two weeks later.  I have a sleeping baby in my arms and I’m having a teary moment.  

I still haven’t sent a card to my aunt.  What can I possibly say to her?  I’ve lost loved ones, but no matter who you’ve lost, you can never say that you know how they feel.  I tried to find his obituary in the online version of their local newspaper, hoping it would give me some inspiration, but there doesn’t seem to be one.  I can’t not send a card.  And I have to write something in that card.  I just don’t think I can fully express the way I feel to her.  No matter what I write, it’s going to sound more cliche and contrived than heartfelt.  *sigh*

I’ll miss you, Uncle Gene.  I just hope you know that you were loved.