It was a long week.
A full day of funeral on Monday, travel on Tuesday, and catch-up the rest of the week left me, as we say around here, with a lot of feelings. I was tempted to crawl into bed by Friday night, but instead we went to Hillary and Mirek’s for a Friday Night Jam Session.
There were little ones with egg shakers and big ones with guitars.
There was homemade stromboli and plenty of wine.
There was, on a cold winter’s night, a solid helping of peace.
Iowa.
I’ve never lived here, but in some ways it will always be home. My mom and dad and their eight collective siblings all grew up here, but only one settled in the Hawkeye State, and it’s for her that I’m here right now. Her husband, my Uncle Mark, died Thursday morning, nineteen months after his colon cancer diagnosis, ten days after his 58th birthday.
Mark married my mother’s little sister when he was younger than I am now. I was Calder’s age, awed by the beautiful bride (my aunt!), irritated that I couldn’t sit with my mother (a bridesmaid), and completely smitten with my new uncle.
He was nothing like my father and his brothers. They were opinionated and loud, sparring over politics and sports and all manner of minutia. Mark was different. Just as tall, but stronger, quieter, and more straightforwardly kind, he became my hero. I wanted nothing more than to be his darling, and I thrilled every time he called me squirt.
To my little-girl mind, Mark’s accomplishments were beyond comprehension. He was a builder, and he had a pick-up truck with his name on it. He built an addition on my grandparents’ house – an actual room, with a floor you could stand on, a roof overhead, and windows looking out into cornfields. He took me on toboggan rides across a golf course that might as well have been the Alps. He paid attention to me, smiled his tremendous smile, and made me feel safe.
I confess a selfish disappointment when I learned that Mark and Mary Jane were expecting a baby of their own. I had plenty of cousins, but only one uncle who called me squirt, and I didn’t want the competition. (Sorry, Thomas.)
Thomas, and then Sarah, may have knocked me out of the running for Mark’s favorite child, but I still relished his company. We saw less of each other through the years, marking family milestones at graduations and weddings and rarely speaking in between. Family is family, though. My children didn’t know Mark well, but my cousin Sarah plays the same epic role in Calder’s imagination that her father always played in mine.
It hurts to look for silver linings in the early, painful death of a good, kind man. Mark and Mary Jane should have had decades more together. Mark should have walked his beautiful daughter down the aisle and delighted the adorable grandchildren he’s sure to have. There is nothing welcome or fair about this.
But there is nothing squandered, either. Mark’s illness was a lens that focused love and hope in his life, and in all of our lives. It illuminated a powerful blend of optimism and realism, of struggle and acceptance, of the cards we want and the cards we learn to play.
My first memory of Mark is that wedding, thirty-one years ago, when he and Mary Jane vowed in sickness and health and until death do us part. My last is of how beautifully they lived it.
