UNNERVING PATIENCE

The wind gently tickled the blinds of my window. Even as a small boy I liked sleeping with a cool breeze comforting my flesh. My mother entered my cluttered room and fiddled with the dusty blinds. As she slowly closed the window, I pretended to be asleep. From the sound of her tears, I knew the day she had feared most had finally come to pass. The finest man I have ever met ceased to suffer.
My mother's brother was to be the pioneer of the family. He worked hard to put himself through college in a time when higher education was not the norm. My mother's father lost his wife at a cruel time and often lost his temper. My father thanklessly fought for his country and saw unimaginable horrors; his reward was post-traumatic stress disorder. He, too, often lost his temper. My uncle, who lost his mother as a young man, seemed to be a bottomless well of patience and kindness. He always had time to play with his nephews, though he had been tired from working day and night. His reward was cancer.
I had heard he had cancer, but I did not understand what that meant. He looked the same and acted the same. Apparently cancer was not all that bad. At least not as far as an 8-year-old boy could tell. I even remember going to his wedding, kissing his wife, and throwing rice outside. I remember someone complaining about Catholic ceremonies being too long. Everything seemed fine. But a few months later we went to visit him when he had gone to live at an in-patient home.
Eventually, we see our parents, and it becomes clear that they never actually knew what the hell they were doing; but they tried so hard to make things good that we never seemed to notice. We see them and realize that they are now old. For some reason, they no longer match our mental pictures of them, but we still recognize and love them. The day we visited my uncle at the home I could not recognize him. I remember sitting outside on the porch with my family, my uncle and his wife. Everyone was familiar, with the exception of my uncle who was now an absolute stranger. A pale, gaunt, shadow of a man; a man whose jaw had grown three times its normal size. A man who could not speak, but could still laugh. We only saw him twice more; once at his apartment in Cleveland where we played Risk, and then at the funeral.
As a boy I did not fully understand death. I only understood that I would never see my uncle again.
Upon puberty, I felt guilt about masturbating as I thought someone in heaven was watching me. I am now the age of my uncle when he passed away. I am also working to put myself through school. I have developed unnerving patience and occasionally I try to be kind. I think of my hopes and plans for the future and now, more than 15 years later, I fully understand the breadth of what was lost.
We also saw his wife only twice more. She had known he had cancer when they were married. Maybe she thought he would get better. Maybe she knew how much her sacrifice would mean to him. Either way, we never saw her again. Could we bare gifts other than sorrow?
He died in the middle of the night, alone at the hospital. He was found at the pay-phone. His last breath of life had been a call to his wife; a call to utter the three most important words we can ever say.