Today I lost my Uncle James to cancer. He was more than a good man. I started writing him a letter when I heard that he was dying. I had hoped to get it to him before he died, but I was too late. So instead, I ended up writing a eulogy. I post it in honor of him.
Dear Uncle James,
I wish I had started writing this letter sooner – like years ago. But we always seem to put off the things that should be most important. And while, I never put off telling you how much l love you, I should have written in down a long time ago. It matters, and I am sorry that I didn’t write this before.
As a kid, it took me a long time to really understand you Uncle James. My branch of the family tree were all talkers. We tend to be unable to keep our mouths shut. If you need an opinion, we are there for you. Heck, it doesn’t even matter if we know what we’re talking about, if we talk long enough we will become convinced of our own correctness on the issue. But you were not a talker. I think I was 12 before I had much of a conversation with you. And I remember that was scary. Not because you were scary, but because I wasn’t sure how to talk to you. See as a talker, I relate really well to other talkers. But you weren’t a talker. You were a doer. You showed people your love. I think that intimidated me, because I was less a doer and more a talker. I wanted to convince people I loved them by telling them over and over again. You simply showed them every day through everything you did.
It took me a while to learn that yours is a much deeper way of communicating. In the competition between word and deed, deed wins every time. (I cannot tell you how disappointed I am that this is true, but I can admit that it is.) Talking is easier. Talking doesn’t really require much of us. But your way of loving takes everything – your time, your mind, your muscles, your resources. You do the very things that we need most, or want most anyway, and all without complaint or comment. You even do the things that takes us most off guard. I remember one of many years that we came to Waco for Christmas. All of us loaded up in the car to go to a Christmas Eve service at church except you. You had to work. So we went and did the Christmas thing and all came home in a bunch after dark. We kids (especially Allen and I) were the first out of the car and into the house. We walked in loudly and excited because the next morning was of course the opening of presents. And all of the sudden, Allen and I both came to a dead halt and stood there with mouths gaping as we watched Santa Clause kneeling under the tree placing presents. I am sure that one of us must have said “Oh my gosh” out loud because “Santa” got up and ran out the front door. We looped back outside the back door hollering at our families that we just saw Santa Clause, but no one could find hide nor hair of him anywhere – except the presents under the tree. For the longest time we were pushed back to the edge of childhood magic thinking that maybe, just maybe…
It never dawned on us until much later that it might have been Uncle James in that Santa suit. And it wasn’t until even much later that I realized that for all intents and purposes it was Santa in that suit. Santa is this legendary guy that makes dreams come true for boys and girls by going out of his way to do something for them without ever saying a word. What part of that doesn’t describe you Uncle James?
You taught me a lot of things over the course of my life….besides how to show love. You taught me the value of words when they are used judiciously. Whenever you said the words, “I love you” I knew that you meant them deeper than I understood at the moment. I knew that whenever you took the time to talk to me (or anyone for that matter) your ideas and thoughts were not given with little or no thought behind them. You chose words carefully and they were salted with wisdom and strength that few of us will ever achieve ourselves.
You taught me that no matter how cheesy I thought they were, the inherent values that were found in westerns made them worth watching. And that as long as the Lone Ranger continued to ride, all of us were better off for it. I spent so many hours in front of the TV with you watching westerns (for the longest time because I was afraid to ask you to turn it to cartoons even though I KNEW you would like them better if you gave them a chance) but mostly because sitting with you in silence watching them somehow made me feel connected to you and even when I was young, that was important to me. It felt like we connected more by not saying anything for a couple of hours, and then eating pimento cheese sandwiches on fluffy white bread with cheesy poofs, then we ever could have nattering on about whatever was going on in the world. Plus, doing that always made me feel better about myself. I was a better person for having spent time with you.
You taught me not to undervalue things. This lesson came later in life and at my own expense – literally. I remember the annual garage sale that I sold a bunch of my stuff at right after Ferf and I got married. We were trying to thin out our “stuff” and decided to join in the fun that was the annual garage sale. I brought all my stuff and immediately solicited mom and Aunt Nita’s help in pricing the stuff. They marked everything “to ensure it would sell” and I went along with that mindset. To be fair, it did all sell. In fact I think you bought 90% of it the night before. And then you put it all back out on the tables with prices 50-100% higher than I had sold them to you. And, of course, it all sold. I was happy that it sold, but very depressed that “my money” was in your pocket. But as we started to leave, you pulled me aside and gave me all that money and more and made me promise not to tell mom and Aunt Nita, because you said I should have it as a newly married kid. Then you told me never to let the women price my stuff at a garage sale and hugged me and told me you loved me. But I already knew.
And, you taught me the value of wheat pennies. I know that they are, each one of them, worth somewhere between a dime and a quarter. I know this because you would always pay me that much for them. I spent a good portion of my childhood searching for these coins. It always seemed that there were lots of them, but over time I have found fewer and fewer of them. I always figured that you had simply cornered the market on them and that most of the ones in existence belonged to you. But I kept looking anyways. In fact, if you look in my bedroom right now, I have a jar of change and next to it is a special cup with nothing but wheat pennies in it. I haven’t sold you a penny in years, but I keep watch for them anyways because I know they mean something to you. And that is reason enough for me to keep looking for them.
I know that we are not going to get to spend much time together here pretty soon. Last time I was in Texas, we made sure that we stopped in to see you. I knew then that it might be my last time to see you on this side of heaven. And I am so glad that I did. Like always, it was less about saying and more about doing. But I did tell you how much I loved you anyways, and you told me too. And I gave you a wheat penny for the last time – for free even.
Uncle James, I hope that I can one day be the man you always were. I might not ever be able to do as much as you did for people, and Lord knows that I will always talk more than you ever did. But somewhere in the middle of talking and doing are the wheat pennies of life – the important parts where we know that we love each other no matter what. You always knew the value wasn’t in the pennies, it was in the connection we had by looking for them cause it gave us a reason to always think of each other no matter where we were. I will always continue to look for the wheat pennies.
