{"id":2073,"date":"2016-11-04T12:42:52","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T17:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/control-h.org\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2016-11-04T12:42:52","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T17:42:52","slug":"four-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/2016\/11\/04\/four-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Four"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Write about someone you\u2019ve recently lost.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing with what I remember of the prompt as pretty much of our Intertur]bes (and TV) is out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was supposed to write about someone I\u2019d recently lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today is my grandfather\u2019s birthday. He\u2019s the only one of my grandparents still living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also would have been my dad\u2019s youngest brother\u2019s birthday. He died a few weeks ago following several years of health problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t know him terribly well. Same goes for a lot of my parents\u2019 siblings; we were gone. I don\u2019t feel deprived by that or anything. It was part of what happened with my dad\u2019s job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure. I had an idealized view of where my parents grew up, but the more I\u2019ve learned, the more I understand why they never really wanted to go back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things weren\u2019t good along the Gulf Coast for a very long time. I couldn\u2019t comprehend the pervasive poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what do I know about my uncle? He was a little more than nine years my dad\u2019s junior. My dad\u2019s two younger brothers were born after my grandparents reconciled (I\u2019m not sure if they divorced, but I\u2019m pretty sure they did.) So, in my parents\u2019 wedding photos, he was a pre-teen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He worked for many years as an Interstate trucker. After Hurricane Katrina, he started doing glasswork for damaged historic buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s significantly-renovated house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He died a few weeks ago. I couldn\u2019t go down for the funeral, and haven\u2019t heard much else. Kind of odd to ask family you haven\u2019t seen in awhile about more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s about what I\u2019d written when my Intertubes quit working.  I didn\u2019t really nail the prompt now that I look at it.  As a kid, it was kind of a question of what\u2019s he driving right now?  He always seemed to have a different car, and be driving a different truck for work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Write about someone you\u2019ve 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\u2019d recently lost. Today is my grandfather\u2019s birthday. He\u2019s the only one of my grandparents still living. It also would have been my dad\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-journal-writers-month"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}