5/4/21 Another Death In The Family?

     I hate to be the one counting but this is the third brother my dad has now lost in about the last 12 years.  This was probably my favorite uncle on my dad's side, I worked with him for three summers roofing and building a house.  He was quite the ham and had that uncanny ability to make you laugh even if he was hurting from a hangover and was not in the mood to work.  His favorite phrase he used around me was for my brother who never did like doing manual labor but we were both hired by him the first summer after I graduated from high school, he would always say "he is no bueno for work."  My brother could not stand being out in the heat, taking directions, being left alone to clean, or anything resembling the kind of work one would do building a house.  Shit, recently my brother's remote steps on his truck wouldn't go all the way up, so to fix them he kicked them until he got tired, then jumped up and down on them until something broke, that boy has not changed.

    While we were at his viewing, his daughters (he had three) and son set up a set of pictures from his life and I couldn't help but see the fire in his eyes.  He was a great marathon runner himself and all his kids turned out to be state champions while they were in high school.  I remember how he rode his kids, hard, to make sure they achieved what he saw in them.  He wasn't mean on purpose but he had no filter and he cut through a lot of BS by just saying what needed to be said.  If you were a couple of pounds overweight, he knew and you knew that he knew.  He had a certain way of delivery, I was never going to be a runner, so I wasn't his target audience, but he would occasionally point at my stomach, do a little "huh? uh?" like "hey, what we doing about this? eh?"  It was more in humor but he wasn't checked out, he paid attention and let you know what he thought.

    I liked this man, he was a good guy, he didn't like going anywhere and stayed close to his family all his life, even in the last few years, his son had a business running a restaurant and he would spend most days working with him in the back, washing dishes, helping with the briskets, he was serving plates at my niece's quince, where our cousin was hired to provide the meal.  He was happy to be there involved but in the background, staying busy but being part of the action.

    I didn't like seeing him at the viewing, it wasn't the man we knew all our life, the man with a quick joking jab, the man who had a lot of patience to teach what he knew.  Two years ago I mentioned to him that Baby A runs weird and he had him take a couple steps and proceeded to explain what he needed to do to run more efficiently, this was that man's passion, he enjoyed the sport of running, and I am glad to have known and worked with him.