Day 30: Death

I recall the earsplitting ring of the phone that night, followed by the gut-wrenching sound of my mother's shriek.

He was gone.

There had been an accident.  He was the only involved and as I imagined the metal of the Tacoma scraping against the stone wall before it plunged into the water beneath him, I had to squeeze, wrinkle my eyes shut, sealing them tighter and tighter in a failed attempt to expunge the gruesome visions.  My cognizance juxtaposed; I longed to know the details and also prayed the images would vacate my agitated mind.  In this era of time, the imagination labored, sweating on and endless wheel; a treadmill of speculation.  The anxiety, palpable.

My thoughts shift from gruesome to pure pain and I relive the moment I disclosed my love for him, for the first and only time in our relationship, a mere nine hours earlier.  It was a foreboding of sorts as we never really talked like that, and I recall a dizziness; as if I hovered over my body, spectating as I embraced his frail frame for what would be the last time.  And somehow, I knew it would be.  He was exposed, his dignity deflated.  He'd always swelled with pride, never desiring to present any weakness, and as a result, he was unbreakable, immortal in our eyes.  Except for that summer daybreak when we faced the harsh reality that the ticks on the clock with him in our lives were always scarce.  We'd fallen into his facade of perpetual existence, and were proven wrong.

The days that followed were hazy and despairing.  Hoards of people made appearances.  I grew ill, my state of mind gnawing at my well-being, coughing until the muscles in my side shred: torn up the way our family would be, at the loss of this man we so loved.  I spent the next few days hunched over in both my mental and physical state of being: my thoughts sickening me and my heart splitting, aching...the pain unfathomable.  

The wild, spirited nature of someone larger than life had vacated this world, and we all knew our own lives would cease to be the same.

My face compulsorily spreads into a smile when I think about those carefree summer days when he would pick us up in his truck, ask us to hold the wheel while he lazily spit sunflower seeds out the driver's window, whistling to every tune on the radio and making us pee our pants with laughter.  There were also moments of seriousness; I have a clear-as-day memory of him telling us not to cry when he dies, and that everyone dies, but to laugh when his time came, and to remember the good times.  It's hard to fathom that this conversation is so seared into my mind as it occurred when I was likely six or seven years old, and yet I guess it was one of those moments frozen in time, never to be forgotten.  I'm sure I didn't even understand it at the time, and if I am truthful with myself, I still can't understand or accept his passing.  It is a major area within me that I have yet to find peace.  A decade elapsed and I'm left feeling continuously robbed at every moment he isn't here.  His existence was stripped from us, and so often I beg the skies for omens.

Every now and then, a hawk appears, soaring a little too low to the soil, and I wonder if it's him, nearby. 

I wonder if he's there to remind me about all those times he took us fishing, always giving us the big catch, or the times he'd jump out and scare us so badly we were mute for what felt like hours...and yet once recovered, we'd gleefully run back for more.  His back massages, arm-tickles, his little giggle laugh, his extraordinary fervor for life, and his love for children. 

We didn't say "I love you," because it never needed to be said.  It was always inherently felt.

What I'd give for just one more laugh with him, one more conversation, one more scare.

And I realize;

I don't require a bird sighting to awaken in me, the truth.  That I'll never forget my uncle.