I feel like a highway that was built in Calgary: full of confusing signs, hectic, filled with lulls and surprise stop lights. Is this the city or the cross canada throughway?
My uncle, a man who stepped up and took on the role of father when there wasn't any lineup for the position, is dying. I saw him a month ago - flitting around his front yard trying to give me the casserole dish that he used to make his bean dish in - those were great beans. This meeting wasn't an example of him breaking with reality - the flitting and offering had purpose - he was in the middle of a garage sale.
I can still feel his hand on my head. I can still hear his words of incrimination as I had been dawdling outside chatting with Terry rather then following him in the house to look at a condo they were thinking of buying. I want that moment back because I think I would like to stay there a little longer.
He is dying.
He is dying of cancer that seems to be as prolific as Stephen King, and almost as detailed - it is everywhere and yet managed to hang out and expand itself undetected.
I still haven't decided how I feel, outside of extreme sadness for him. He has lived a life that was filled with giant sores and losses of parents, dignity, friends, job, health. And now - and now he is being pillaged in a different way - body taken bit by bit, nerve by nerve.
He is young and still in love with redecorating houses and finding new ways to invent spaghetti sauce. He is the son of the mother he never really had, and the child of the sister who, before him, stepped up in the role of parent.
And now she will wail.
And what can I do?