This morning I noticed I missed a couple calls from my dad. I didn’t worry about it – I was in the middle of helping Leslee with a baby project. But later, when I had to run to Home Depot, I gave him a call back.
He told me the sad news that my uncle Mud died in his sleep last night at the age of 66.
And again I was struck with the overwhelming loneliness that I feel when ever kin dies. It is, as Marsha tells me “hard to become an orphan.”
I didn’t know uncle Mud very well. He was an architect and lived in Arizona as long as I can remember. My memories of him are few and scattered and play in my brain like a disjointed flashback in a movie that gives you head ache. I remember going to dinner with him in Arizona to a Mexican restaurant. I remember him in the kitchen of the Yellow House while he and my mother argued about plans for an addition to her house. I remember posing for pictures with his kids in front of the Ricks College sign on the quad at EFY when I was 14. I remember him teasing me a couple years ago at Thanksgiving about being married to Wyatt.
And that is all.
But the sum total of Uncle Mud is more than just these few memories played out over time and space. There is a feeling about him – that he was kind beneath that exterior of a constant tease. There is a feeling that he wanted to be loved, and figured the best way to earn that love was to give his out freely. There was a feeling that he was my uncle, and if I needed it, I could count on him.
And so the sadness is there as another family member turns from the page of my reality back into the pages of my history. I will miss him. I will miss the comfort of having him.
But mostly I think about my dad – it was his oldest brother, some seven years his senior. I don’t know what their relationship was like growing up, but I know Uncle Mud seemed close to my dad – he seemed to be around a lot the past ten years or so. I hope my dad won’t be too sad in missing his brother. As hard as it is to become an orphan, it must be even more difficult to lose one of your own generation.