Saying Good-bye

The sad posts weren't supposed to start this soon, but as always, the universe had other plans for me.

On Saturday night, I got the call that my healthiest uncle was in the ER in critical condition. I started getting ready to head to Indianapolis in the wee hours, and in the meantime, fired off a text to two very sensible friends: "I can't lose someone else in February. Can. Not." They talked me down off the ledge, and it turned out that yes, in fact, I can: about 15 hours later, he was gone and I'm still very much here.

I keep banishing February and it keeps coming round again. This is the fourth family member that we've lost in February in four years, and that's only counting the ones I'm actually related to, because my extended family's other families (on both sides) have suffered losses in (or near) February the past few years, too. Winter sucks.

I let one of the baby cousins play with my
phone on Christmas Eve. Thank goodness.

Anyway. Today we say good-bye to a kind and gentle soul who somehow managed to cope for 45 years with the so-very-not-those-things family he married into. His cheerful demeanor and voice of reason are lost to us forever. He filled a deep need in the extended family, and I don't know that anyone will ever step into that void that he has left behind. We are bereft, and no one more so (naturally) than my auntie who has had him at her side for so long.

I've been trying to think of stories to share and I settled on a few, but most of them are recent and not from when I was a kid and saw him all the time. Because, I think, he's always been more of a constant presence than someone with whom I have a series of happenings to write about later. Always there, always ready for a chat, always going to be around forever. Until he wasn't.

Uncle Buster (not his given name, but that's what we call him) worked for Indiana DOT for years. Sometime around the third or fourth grade, we were assigned to interview someone for a report. Apparently I was already a budding transportation enthusiast, because I decided to interview Uncle Buster about highway things. I don't remember what we talked about, except that I was keen to know what the control boxes near traffic lights were called. Looking back now that I've become an active transportation advocate and a technical writer, I'm high-fiving both of us for having such a great idea.

It's ridiculous that all of my pics
of my family are from 15 years
ago, but whatever. My sweet little
flower girl is now in her first
year of college and has gotten
slightly taller since then.

Skipping ahead a few decades, I think Uncle Buster was pretty excited about Denise and I coming home (her for a visit, me to stay-ish) two summers ago. I was doing something in the deep recesses of Grandma's house a couple days after we arrived when there was a knock on the door, and she said "hello" in the voice she uses for strangers, so I thought it was a Jehovah's Witness or something. Then a familiar voice said, "I'm looking for a couple of girls!" and I screamed, "I'm coming!!" from wherever I was in case Grandma decided to call the cops before she realized who was standing in front of her. (She knows all of my dad's family very well and figured it out pretty quickly; she just didn't recognize him right away.) We ended up on the back porch talking about my bicycle for an hour while Grandma tried to get him to eat something. Poor Grandma and Denise were bored out of their minds having to hear us talk bike things.

Last May, I ran the Indy Mini and so did my oldest cousin's husband. He finished something like an hour ahead of me, and I didn't even know they were there until I got home and checked Facebook. That afternoon I got a phone call from Uncle Buster to ask how the race went, and he asked if I'd seen my cousin (his daughter) & her husband there. I said no, that he'd finished about an hour ahead of me and I never even laid eyes on either of them. Uncle Buster, who up until then was apparently confused about how running works, said, "But he's older than you!" Once I stopped laughing, I explained that any advantages a few years' younger runner may have, especially at our age, are easily overcome by things like training, genetics, better diet, longer legs, and not being 30 pounds overweight. I think he was reassured by that answer. Or perhaps he spent the rest of his days convinced that I'm the faster runner and last May was just a fluke.

Another recent visit home, sometime last spring, he asked how I'd gotten here and I told him I took the bus. He reacted like he'd never heard of public transportation, and then asked why I'd never told him I needed a car, because he would have helped me find one. I told him I don't need a car, and he said, "You just said you don't have a car."
Me: "I don't."
Him: "But I can help you get one."
Me: "I don't need one."
Him: "You just said you don't have one."
Me: "I don't."
This went on for a few minutes, me keeping it up just to see how long he would keep going, until my auntie finally couldn't take it any longer and told one or both of us to can it. We started talking something else, and she finally commented on my patience for long conversations with a man who could talk for America. I told her, "I was married to one of these, too," and she said, "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that." I dearly hope Chadwick and Buster run into one another on the other side. In eternity, they may finally get through all the words they always intended to say. (Unlikely.)

And finally... Uncle Buster and I had a nice chat for an hour or so on Christmas Eve. At one point, he asked me if I was a member of the Christian Singles Network in Cincinnati. (I don't even know if that's a thing, btw.) I asked him if he was high.
Him: "I'm serious!"
Me: "So am I!"
Him: "Well, but don't you want--"
Me: "No no no no no. Whatever is at the other end of that sentence, I do not want it. No."
Him: "... Well. Okay."
And then we moved on to something else. Airplanes, I think.

Goodnight and joy be to you, Buster. We'll see you on the other side.

(This video really does work, even though it's grey in some browsers. Go ahead and click.)