Turning his family tragedy into my personal revelation.
2005-03-12 at 9:32 a.m.
I'm a single girl this weekend. Which is me saying that Andrew's had to fly back to Chicago due to a death in the family and I had to stay here due to the EXTREMELY HIGH COST of airline tickets and the extremely high pile of shit I have to do.Andrew's Uncle Bob passed away (Bob's your Uncle!) this week. It's weird to think about, because Bob, to me, was always grandfatherly age. Sort of like, it's sad, yes, and he'll be missed, and he was a great guy, but he'd lived his life long and full, y'know? He'd ceased his cancer treatments about Christmas, so we knew this was coming, it was just a matter of time.
But then I think about my uncles, neither of whom are old. Andrew's family is a ginormous farming family. If you lined up all his aunts and uncles, I could maybe name three or four. There's his Aunt Ruth, who's the baby of her family, and there's Aunt Nancy and her husband JW, who cornered me one Thanksgiving and spent the entire meal spelling names of European countries. Yes, you read that right. "F... R... A..." So I still see his face in my nightmares. And there's another uncle who has a ponytail. Gary? I'm not sure. After that, they blur together in a Midwestern cavalcade of jello salads and capri pants. But since they're so big, there's a nearly twenty year gap between Bob and Andrew's mother. I think. It feels that way, anyway. So it's like he's an entirely different generation. I think it'd be more shocking if Bob was in his forties or fifties.
It feels weird to be here while he's there. I'm glad we could afford to send him--I think it means more to him than he'd admit. And selfishly, I'm glad I didn't have to go. (To add insult to his injury, here: 70's and sunny. There: 20s and snowy.) I missed him more than I thought I would. Going out isn't as fun when he's not here to come back to.
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