On February 26, 2013 the world lost a great man. My Uncle Larry died
sixty-one years to the day; he died on his birthday and to me that sounds like
a crappy birthday present , but he’s not in pain anymore. He had been fighting
throat cancer for more than a year, and he was going to have a tracheotomy put
in sometime next week. But, God knew that was the last thing he wanted to do.
He’s smoked for years, and he said he didn’t want a trache.
And, now I feel so bad, so
guilty for what I’ve done over the last few years of his life. I had so many
chances to get to know him, so many years to try and be a good nephew. And, now
those chances are gone. I know the old phrase ‘you don’t know what you have
until you lose it’, and it’s true. Every day, it’s true.
It hurts.
It hurts so bad, know that I could have been a better nephew, knowing
what I could have done to be his friend, knowing that just once I could tell
him I loved him. I’ve said that or even thought that, he was just a fixture in
my life. I would go up to Grandma’s and I could find him sitting at the table
on the chair closest to the door, or I’d find him in the living room, watching
golf, football, or westerns. On nights when I would stay up at Grandma’s house
at night I would see him moving around in the morning getting ready for work,
and he was just always there. And, now he’s not, and knowing that hurts so
much.
It’s like when my dog Sally died. She would always bark at me when I
drug the lawn mower down to Uncle Kevin’s house. It took three days, it took me
three days to know that it was real. Three days for me to drag the lawn mower
down and listen to the emptiness coming from the kennel. And, it was like that
this time too. I live three hours away, and know that he was gone was almost
clinical, like it was just one more fact of life. But, it got real yesterday,
and it was real today. Because I was here, I was here and the fixture my uncle
had become in my life wasn’t. It doesn’t matter how many more dinners I have
with my grandmother, he’s not going to be sitting down at the end of table
anymore. Not eating his share of the cornbread and the green beans I turned my
nose up at.
And, I can’t believe how much that hurts.
Everybody losses people in this world, it’s a fact of life. Everybody
dies. But, I don’t think anybody knows how bad it’s going to hurt until it
happens. I know I didn’t know how much it was going to hurt. And, when it came
down to it, I realized I’ve never given him a Christmas present, I’ve never
given him anything as much as I should have. So, when it came down to it I had
to give him something. When me and my wife got together, even before we got
married, she gave me her lucky coin, and today I gave him that coin. I put it
in his hand so that he’d be able to hold on to it forever.
I pray that coin gives him luck across the river and all throughout the
ever after.
I love you Uncle Larry. I love you so much. And, I wish I’d taken the
time to tell you that in life.
In loving memory of Larry Neil Smith
Feb. 26, 1952-Feb. 26, 2013