I've wanted to write about uncle Don since dad and I got back from our trip a few weeks ago, but I saw so much in the time I was in Arizona, and it has taken me some time to process it all.
I had seen uncle Don just a couple of years ago, which I am very grateful for now. His house was dirty, but it was a perfectly reasonable place for dad and I to be able to spend the night, which we did. Between that visit and the time he died, it was evident that his health had deteriorated, and along with it his quality of life.
So I feel sad thinking about that, but mostly just thoughtful. As he got older, it seems that his routine got smaller and smaller, finally becoming a daily visit to the restaurant down the street from his house for morning coffee, and then returning home to settle in for a long day of watching the Diamondbacks on tv. I know there was more than that, but it couldn't have been much.
The idea of that depresses me and makes my heart ache for him, but it kicks my brain into overdrive thinking about it, because he didn't seem to mind it. When I last saw him, he seemed as mentally active as ever, and not at all bummed out or depressed. He lived the way he wanted to live, and I believe that freedom made him happy.
It's a noble thing to proclaim "no regrets," but it's mostly impossible. I'm sure Don had his fair share, but he seemed to be a man who could come to terms with truths better than the average person. Dad always said Don had a scientific mind, and it's certainly true. He made decisions based on great reflection and weighing of rational thought and quantifiable evidence. He could be stubborn, but that word implies that he was face to face with truth, and chose to disregard it. He was a man who decided his own truth rather than have it decided for him. He bought in to no belief system that I could tell beyond the one he had spent a lifetime refining based on his own studies and experiences. He bucked societal norms that he considered outdated and allowed himself the freedom to truly explore his mind and his place within the world.
However solitary his life may have been, it was not one devoid of creativity and beauty. A source of great pride amongst our family, my uncle Don's paintings and drawings were professional quality; indeed, he dedicated a period of his life to art and the act of creating it. And I learned of other interests during my time rummaging through his possessions - he collected guns, he enjoyed music (and may have even played banjo), and he even enjoyed video games. He had a taste for Kurt Vonnegut, and had amassed an entire workshop to craft and repair machines and electronics. His time as a prospector had yielded dozens of interesting and valuable arrowheads, gems, and bits of pottery.
I also learned a lot about my family while I was in Arizona. Uncle Don (and before and along with him, my grandma) kept everything that anyone ever sent to them. I hastily collected anything I could find with a name I recognized, so those items could be returned to the senders. There were exactly three items from me - each announcing a graduation from one institution or another. My sister, Heather, had sent numerous letters and pieces of artwork to Don throughout the years. I was touched that she had such a correspondence with him, but it made me feel sad that I had not tried harder throughout the years to keep in touch. He would have written me back. He always did. The last check he ever wrote was to my dad for Christmas - a small amount of money to divide amongst the family.
He was a good man. He was also a moral man, and steadfast in his beliefs. He evinced a hard facade, but finding so many years worth of sentimental items collected and carefully stored showed me a welcome glimpse of the soft-hearted man inside. I didn't know how much I needed to see it until it was there in front of me.
Time catches up to all of us in the end, and uncle Don was no exception. And once it catches up, it keeps right on moving by. We buried him at the foot of his mother's grave, in a cemetery overlooking the land on which he had lived most of his life. There is no marker over him save for a large quartz I found outside his house - almost certainly a find on one of his expeditions. It seemed like a particularly inauspicious way to go out, but it also seems fitting - uncle Don was never much for fanfare.
So there it is. I confess that, before his death, I thought about him rarely. But since his death and my time spent in Arizona, I think about him every day. Not just wondering what his last few days were like, although that is certainly part of it (and the expected "maybe if I had been there I could have helped him" thoughts), but also reflecting on a life spent alone. There were daily acquaintances, and everyone in his small town "knew" him, but at the end of the day he had only himself to answer to. There's a certain stark beauty in that. A certain kind of purity. And it was evident that the life he led was full of the things that were important to him, including family and friends, although we all lived so far away.
He has left me more than stories; more than images. Since his death, I feel in a way I just didn't before. Emotions and memories, sure, but also a kind of clarity. A kind of intrinsic comprehension linked by blood. It's almost as if he has become part of me. I don't know how to describe it any better than that. There was a great commonality between us that only became apparent to me after his death and my uncovering so much history in his house, and in his town.
I regret it took me so long to realize it, but I know now I was always meant to. Time catches up to all of us - sooner or later.
No comments:
Post a Comment