Uncle Russ

Today my thoughts are with my cousins and Aunt. Uncle Russ passed away yesterday, losing a long battle with cancer, and leaving what I know is an indescribable vacancy in their lives. I can empathize, but can't be in their shoes. I will miss him terribly, but nothing compares to losing a father or a husband. I can give them all my love and support, but there's nothing I can give them to make it hurt any less. And that might be the worst part. I want to give them something - a word of encouragement, an expression of my love for them, a token from my own experiences - that will help it hurt less, even if only a little. But there's nothing anyone can do on that level. It's an intensely and necessarily personal pain that can be shared with others, but not alleviated by them. Still, I want to do what I can, not only to show my love and support, but to honor his memory. At the moment, I've only got a token.

I'll never forget the Cape Cod summers in his various sailboats - they were his highlights to me: a small, almost insignificantly small part of the whole wonderful person he really was. The wind in the sails, the hot summer sun, the joyfully fun and exciting outings with Seagull Beach on the horizon; all these were only parts of the backdrop to what I saw as his show. Still, I truly saw my uncle those times, and hold on to them as a part of his definition. I've missed all that for years, and I think I'll miss it even more now.