Write about someone you’ve recently lost.
Writing with what I remember of the prompt as pretty much of our Intertur]bes (and TV) is out.
I was supposed to write about someone I’d recently lost.
Today is my grandfather’s birthday. He’s the only one of my grandparents still living.
It also would have been my dad’s youngest brother’s birthday. He died a few weeks ago following several years of health problems.
I didn’t know him terribly well. Same goes for a lot of my parents’ siblings; we were gone. I don’t feel deprived by that or anything. It was part of what happened with my dad’s job.
Sure. I had an idealized view of where my parents grew up, but the more I’ve learned, the more I understand why they never really wanted to go back.
Things weren’t good along the Gulf Coast for a very long time. I couldn’t comprehend the pervasive poverty.
So, what do I know about my uncle? He was a little more than nine years my dad’s junior. My dad’s two younger brothers were born after my grandparents reconciled (I’m not sure if they divorced, but I’m pretty sure they did.) So, in my parents’ wedding photos, he was a pre-teen.
He never ended up with much of a career, and lived with my grandmother until she died. He ended up taking care of her in her final years, actually.
He worked for many years as an Interstate trucker. After Hurricane Katrina, he started doing glasswork for damaged historic buildings.
Not long before my dad died (end of 2010), he had a very serious heart attack, preventing him from doing very much after that. He was trying to do some college work. I think, however, his health prevented him from ever finishing his degree.
Over the last few years, he was very sickly. When my wife and I saw him last, it was basically just him and his cats around my grandmother’s significantly-renovated house.
He died a few weeks ago. I couldn’t go down for the funeral, and haven’t heard much else. Kind of odd to ask family you haven’t seen in awhile about more.
And that’s about what I’d written when my Intertubes quit working. I didn’t really nail the prompt now that I look at it. As a kid, it was kind of a question of what’s he driving right now? He always seemed to have a different car, and be driving a different truck for work.