I have been the kind to reflect on the year gone by, assess what needs to be changed and make a game plan on how to make things better - looking forward to starting with a clean slate on January 1. A perfect year ahead with no mistakes in it.
But I didn't do that last year. I along with members of my family spent the final days of 2019 waiting for a loved one to die. The call eventually came at 3:48 a.m. New Year's Day. Once the ball had dropped, all the celebrations had died down and a peacefulness spread across the land, my uncle took his last breath. He had been quite ill so his passing was merciful but nevertheless sad and nevertheless not the way you want to begin a new year.
We had about a month to prepare. The news came early in December that weeks were all he had left. The news did not seem real. I have always been a glass is half full kind of gal but how do you spin news like this? When you are dealing with death in your face, fast and without justification, it's hard to make sense of it all. Especially during the holidays. A time when you are supposed to be...happy.
At first it didn't seem like the hospital team's assessment of days to live was correct. When I visited my uncle in the hospital on December 18 it seemed like he was far from death. Yes, he seemed tired and his motor skills had declined but he was able to get up and slowly walk around. We were able to have a conversation, which looking back at it now is heartbreaking. I am not sure if he was sugar coating information for me, maybe thinking I didn't know his prognosis, but he said doctors were still trying to figure out what was going on. But I knew the truth. I knew the cancer had spread.
Hearing Christmas songs on the ride home from the hospital that day seemed like a cruel joke. This holiday season, going present shopping, making cookies - it all lacked the spirit. I went through the motions - trying to block out the black cloud hanging over my family. It made me realize how hard holidays can be for some people and that they are not always Norman Rockwell portraits and that is was ok.
But there was something that kicked in on Christmas Eve. Gathering with my family at church - the hugs were a little tighter, the handshakes a little firmer, the walk to the car arm and arm with my dad, a little more cozy. All was calm - all was bright.
Grief is an individual experience and within my immediate family we were all dealing with the pending loss in our own way. I found myself looking at old photos remembering fun times with my uncle - especially when I was kid. He was the fun uncle - the cool uncle. He drove a Camaro that looked just like one of the Matchbox cars my brother had in his collection. It was the sleekest most amazing looking car and for this little girl who didn't know her Dodge Dart from an Alfa Romeo it was something that took my breath away.
On the day before my brother's first holy communion, I guess my parents needed to get a few kiddos out of the house so they could get party ready and my uncle came to the rescue. Years before booster seats were a thing, my bro and I were living our best life cruising up and down the streets of McKeesport in my uncle's newly waxed, black Camaro.
The greatest thing about this memory is that somewhere there is video to prove it actually happened. My uncle, while driving mind you, was manning a video camera, narrating our trip down Grandview Avenue. The cherry on the top, the song that came on the radio to get us home, Hot Rod Lincoln by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.
My uncle had a mini gym in my grandparents' basement. He was into body building and wrestling and, as kids of the 80's WWF generation, it filled my brother and I with a sense of pride to have our own big muscle guy among our relatives. At one time, I thought Bruno Sammartino was related to me because of all the magazines and photos of him that could be found at the little house on Freeland Avenue.
I remember my brother and I jumping on my uncle's bed, listening to the White Album, a request by yours truly, while he lifted weights. My grandmother would prepare a breakfast of champions for him each day - a six egg, pound of bacon extravaganza which was a marvel to behold.
These memories of a happier, healthier time are what I prefer to keep in my head right now. Although my uncle was 12 years younger than my dad, he looked a lot older in his final days. I keep looking at a favorite photo from my childhood - the one that sat on my grandparents' television of my uncle running Pittsburgh's Great Race in 1979. I was only 5 when the picture was taken so I didn't quite understand the full significance of running a 10K, but having run a few 5Ks myself in the last five years I get it now and it makes the photo even more of a treasure.
So I didn't start the new year feeling excited about what might lay ahead in the days, weeks, months to come. I did start the year replaying a pocket full of wonderful times from years past that are helping ease the loss at this sad time. I know that the memories I make in 2020 will be added to a mental comfort quilt that will see me through on those rough days which will be scattered along the road ahead.
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| James"Jim" Bishop running the Great Race in September 1979. |
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