R.I.P. Uncle Bill

i will always remember that though he was such a vigorous republican for most of his life - defending the Iraq war at my birthday party and justifying Bush's second term at Thanksgiving- my last few visits with him involved him saying Obama wasn't that bad.

yesterday i received a phone call from my mother letting me know that my great uncle bill passed away at around 5:30 AM on Friday January 23, 3009. though the last few months have been a struggle to make a man overrun by cancer and dementia as comfortable as possible, it still comes as a bit of an overwhelming shock that he has died.

I went to see him a few weeks before I left for Utah when he was still in Clove Lakes nursing home. I needed to talk to him about selling me his car; there were a few DMV papers he needed to sign. Normally, I hate visiting nursing homes or hospitals, they make me really depressed. Though, while there, I realized just how depressed most of the patients are and how I could leave the place but they were just stuck, most of them in wheelchairs.

I bumped into Hedi (the caregiver who took over when I left) in the hallway and she said that he was dressed and sitting in his wheelchair. Uncle Bill was never happier to see someone was there to visit him, even though it took a few minutes for him to realize it was me. I ended up spending an hour or so just shooting the breeze and watching baseball on the black and white television that sat on the dresser across from the hospital bed.

It was those few weeks that I lived with Aunt Ruth and visited Uncle Bill that I realized how little I really knew about them. I guess thats how it always goes, in movies at least; only in their final hours do I come to understand their ways, their quirks, their past.

rest in peace uncle bill.