There’s no way to sugarcoat the facts, no way to describe what happened without the risk of heartache. But I’ll try.
In June, on a warm evening in Napa, Calif., Mrs. G.’s Uncle Bruce watched his son get married. The wedding was a celebration and family reunion rolled into one night. Bruce toasted the newlyweds, danced with his wife until the wee hours and shared memories with his twin brother, up from Atlanta with his wife and daughters.
The twins, identical right down to the worry lines, beamed at how the arc of their lives had delivered them to this moment. There was enough joy that night to fill a lifetime — and perhaps that was a blessing.
Seven weeks later Bruce was gone.
Cancer, like a summer wildfire, had raced through his body until there was nothing left. It made no sense — that it could be so quick, the end of it arriving when we were still talking about the beginning of it. But that’s what happened. He was only 68.
At the wedding he didn’t even know he was sick.
Mrs. G. asked me, stoic and braver than she needed to be: “How could life be so short when there was still so much more to live for?”
Because it’s fragile, I told her. Because life doesn’t have to be fair or kind — me being more honest than was called for.
In the silence that followed, I thought that Mrs. G. would cry. Instead, she said: “I know.”
I felt her loss and struggled to make sense of it. I’m not sure that I have.
If you don’t have a favorite uncle, Bruce could inspire you to find one. He always had a lesson for Mrs. G. (and me, by extension), and it was usually about enjoying life.
Because he and his brother were 11 years older than Mrs. G., they were allowed to baby-sit her when they lived in Highland Park, N.J. But they were more like a pair of mischievous older brothers than authority figures.
They taught her to play card games and Monopoly. They explained the intricacies of baseball. They watched episodes of “The Three Stooges” and laughed until their sides hurt.
When the twins taught Mrs. G. how to ride a bicycle, Bruce told her she was a being a baby because she still had training wheels. She got up and riding, though.
Bruce never waited to enjoy life, because he knew it was short. His father had died young, as did his sister — Mrs. G.’s mother. So whenever he could manage it, Bruce did his best to live well, to eat good meals and share the fun with his family.
One of the reasons Bruce retired early, after working more than 40 years at Goodyear, was because he didn’t want to retire at an age that would find him too old to enjoy himself. He and his wife sold their home in Ohio and moved to Las Vegas, where they made memories every day for six years.
In the wake of Bruce’s death, Mrs. G. and I realized we procrastinate too much. We are banking too heavily on a sunrise that might not arrive.
If Bruce were here, he’d remind us that life is too short to wait around for, and we should start living it. He’d smile and say that waiting leaves you with nothing but time marked on a calendar.
It’s like living your life with training wheels.
Reach Mike Gordon at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
