Life, it seems, will fade away

We buried my Uncle Mike this week. He was fifty-eight when he died last Friday, but he looked about eighty-eight. He had a standard issue Pagnotta beer gut for almost as long as I can remember, but cancer and chemo had whittled it away and left hime paper thin. What hair he had left was white and the white peach fuzz that survived of his formerly dark bushy mustache was an embarassment. Even his glasses sat on his face wrong. Lung cancer is not a nice way to die.

I decided at the wake when I was looking down at hime from the kneeler that I'd banish the image from my mind and remember him the way he lived instead.

I do have fantastic memories of my uncle. As a kid he was known in the family as an inspired gift giver at Christmas time. He had an uncanny ability to get his hands on the coolest toys and hottest new video games (Super Mario 2!). He complained about lazy people at work over dinner at Christmas Eve, invoking Atlas Shrugged (which I read at his reccomendation) and arguing passionately with my Uncle Anthony who also worked at American Airlines, but as a Union delegate. It's funny how the people you love can drive you nuts. It always made for great theater.

My Uncle Mike also had great advice. One nugget that will stick with me until the day I die was this: "If you ever get a bill that you don't want to pay, just throw it away. If it's really important they'll send you another one."

He lived in Florida for the last twenty years or so with my Aunt Fran and their kids Christian and Anthony who are twelve and thirteen respectively. Christian put his favorite stuffed animal into the coffin to keep his father company. It was almost too toucning to bear. Anthony, who is a troubled kid under the best of circumstances, is angry. It's worrying, but there's not much that anyone can do to help since they live so far away. I think he needs professional help and I can only hope that he gets it.

Most of the family is in New York so my Uncle's body was flown up here to be buried in the family plot. I have to tip my hat to American Airlines. They gave him a touching send off.

As the plane with his body taxied down the runway to take off, it passed through arches of water shot by all the emergency vehicles at the Miami airport which had lined the side of the runway. It's a very rare honor, typically reserved for retiring pilots or a plane's final flight. I wish I'd been there to see it.

Goodbye Uncle Mike

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