It's a bad thing to happen to a good guy

Me on the trike, my brother, Uncle Jimmy top left, and Granddaddy JC, 1974.

Uncle Jimmy died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at 53 years old. At first, several months ago, it was just an operation. They'd got to it in time, or at least that was the idea I got from the daily emails my mom sent out on his condition.

Then he went back and forth to the hospital with one problem or another until finally he said "no more, what's the point?" The surgery did not cure him.

While we were in Chile, we found out he was going home for the last time and hospice would be there.
I had hoped we could put off the goodbye visit for a while, but soon after we returned to the US, the cancer-mail told us he would not be with us much longer.

We drove down to Savannah (Bloomingdale, Georgia actually) to visit with him two weekends ago.

He was completely zonked out on pain killers and looked like something was eating him from inside, which it was, I guess. He was lucid though, and talked to us, occasionally zoning out. He and Aunt Becky wanted to hear about our trip, which was easier, because we knew everything about what was going on with him. I talked to him about the one and only time I'd ever been to Charleston before I was 28 years old, when as a kid my family came to visit him on his Navy ship. He talked about how he'd sailed all the way around South America and back up to California. He talked about his son and daughter and we looked at some pictures.

I did not get to tell him how much I appreciate the old record albums he'd passed on to me over the years. My mom calls him her hippy brother and talks about how much he and I are alike. When I was a teenager I'd go over to babysit his son Joshua (now a college Junior). I'd put the boy to bed, put on Uncle Jimmy's monster headphones and Black Sabbath's Paranoid on the record player, loud. I have that album now, somehow. Along with Pink Floyd's Pleased to Meet Me, another bad Sabbath album, the apple White Album, the Moody Blues Every Good Boy Deserves Favor (awesome jacket!)... I don't even know what else. He also gave me his Dune books, some Philip Dick, and Conan. The last book I remember him giving me was James Halperin's The Truth Machine. He was really excited about it when he gave it to me probably 10 years ago now at Christmas. It's about a genius kid who invents an infallible truth detecting machine and how that changes the world. Maybe it's pulp, but I like pulp.

Yesterday I got the phone call that he'd finally died in the night. I called in sick to work. Allison and I started rearranging the den and I've been coming across all this stuff whose origins I'd forgotten. And then I pick up a 1975 printing of Dune Messiah or Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and start to cry again.

It's funny, or sad, how much you can forget in life. How you can forget what a huge effect people, and your relatives, have on who you are. I wanted him to know that when we went to visit, but didn't know how to say it. Once I got old enough, whenever I saw him he'd say we should go out sometime. We never did, but I don't think it really matters.

As he reclined under blankets in his easy chair, only 18 years older then me, eyes half open and sunk deep in his cancer face, he said his illness was a "bad thing to happen to a good guy." I knew he'd be gone in a week or two, and this was kind of funny. Did he really just tell me a joke from his deathbed? How strange, and cool too.

We talked for a while and when Al and I got up to leave, he shook my hand the best he could, and said "take care." I said you take care. And that's it. A few more "he's winding down" emails, and an early morning phone call. The memorial service is Saturday.

I'll miss you Uncle Jimmy. I'm sorry that such a bad thing had to happen to such a good guy. I hope you knew how much I appreciate everything you've given to me, the books and the music and the idea that adventure is worth it. Take care.