Uncle Ray

Proving it, bit by bit……

 

 

We were just talking about showing love to others, because a lot of entries in my favorites have had to do with love that was denied people in their childhoods.  We had that, too, but that’s not what this entry is about.  This entry is about one of those "shining lights" in our darkness.

My Uncle Ray.  Mama’s little brother.

Ray was the wild child of Mama’s family.  He was a trouble-maker, but in such a way that everyone just called him "the little SOB" and laughed.  God, how people loved my Uncle Ray.

I will never forget him.

When he died, in 1985, he was 29 years old.  It makes me feel strange to know I have already lived longer than one of my uncles got a chance to live.  One day, if God is willing, I will be older than Daddy, too, though.

My Mikey, Lola, and I talked about the importance of telling anyone that you love them.  This is one way I know this lesson.

Mama was in her first year of University of Texas at Tyler when her baby brother died.  Nanny, Daddy’s mother, called up there.  Nanny was smart enough to know that IF Mama wormed any details out of her, security guards should be present to take care of Mama.  She was right on the mark.

Mama didn’t let Nanny get away with only saying, "Come home right now."  Mama picked at Nanny until Nanny told her what had happened.  Up until that point, Mama had thought that maybe her Daddy (my Papaw) or MY brother were in trouble, medically.  Maybe even dead.  Papaw was rather frail by that point, and Johnny’s asthma was always so severe that we almost expected him to die, bad as that sounds.  What she heard hit her very hard, because it never occurred to her it might be one of her siblings.

She passed out when Nanny told her that Ray was dead.  Ray had been working in an oil field, making a wonderful living for his wife, my beautiful Aunt Barbara, and their four-month-old son, Christopher.  A lifting rig that he was on came too close to a power line, and electricity arced into the rig, electrocuting my uncle.

At home, Mama couldn’t stop crying.  Mary Helen, my sister, was VERY close to Ray.  It’s like in MH, Ray saw another little Sue, my mother, and he spoiled MH rotten like none of the other nieces and nephews.  I never resented that, thankfully.  I thought Ray was crazy, but in a good way.  He sure did adore my mother and sister.  His big sister, his hero.

Mama cried and cried.  I finally asked her, 10 years old as I was, why she was crying THAT much.  She looked at me with her red, swollen face, and she said she had NEVER told Ray she loved him.  I didn’t believe that, because Mama ALWAYS said it to us!!!!!  I asked her if she said it when they were little.  She said no, not even then.

That’s when I learned to tell people.  Tell them A LOT, if you have to!  I KNOW Ray knew how much Mama loved him.  I feel it inside me, because those two were always so CLOSE.  But she never once told him, and it almost killed HER.  She grieved so hard for her baby brother, and felt like such a bad sister because she had never said three simple words to her baby brother.

Since then, I’ve made it a habit to tell even MY baby brother, macho pug that he can be, how much he means to me, and that I love him and am very proud of him.  I don’t know if it means that much to him or not, but at least he knows.  I hope.

My sister and I always end our conversations with "I love you" and my saying, "Kiss the kids for us!"  That is, when we aren’t fighting and slamming the phone down on each other.  In those cases, we e-mail hateful messages back and forth and then have the audacity to sign THOSE "I love you".  Funny bunch, ain’t we?

Mama…..my precious, beautiful mother.  I tell her ALL THE TIME how much I love her.  How much she means to me.  How much my hero she is, too.  I tell her that I wouldn’t trade her for anything, and that I am fiercely proud of my parents.  I messed up with Daddy.  I don’t intend to mess up with Mama, too.

And she tells me.  She always has.  She’s always been the one who told me I could do anything I wanted, if I would only believe I could.  It’s been hard as hell to believe I could, sometimes, with Daddy, Nanny, or MH knocking me down before I have sure footing, but I have Mama in my corner….her words etched into my soul….."You CAN do this!  Just hang in there, baby!"

Thank you, God, for my family.  Thank you for my awesome mother.  Thank you for the lessons You have taught me, even those such as the deaths of Uncle Ray, Daddy, Uncle Don, Mrs. Chaffee, Ozella, Cheryl Richards, Tracy, Brianna, Jimmy Sullivan, David Owen – my wonderful Godfather and dear friend to my parents.

Thank you for the blessings that are obvious.  My wife, our daughters, our grandchildren, our family, the house we live in, the car we drive, the opportunity to help Lola sometimes, the blessing of having Lola help us, so many things to be grateful for.

Thank you for our babies, especially.  What would life be without them?  Our gorgeous nieces and nephews are the ones I mean now.  The lovely little people who can help a grown person make what SHOULD BE a simple decision that has weighed them down.  Thank you for all the inspiration.

 

My Mikey, I love you forever times PI cubed plus one,

Your Jack