July 24th would've been my Uncle Jim's 70th birthday. As I said when he passed away in 2008, there's no right way to die at 52. In all honesty, Jim's death hit harder than either of my parents, but in hindsight I have some mixed emotions. I'm also trying not to repeat what I said on the 10th anniversary of his death. In some ways, he lives vicariously through me.
My uncle could be low-key creepy. When he inquired about school and I brought up a female classmate, without a beat he would ask "is she hot?" (I had to start using they/them pronouns whenever he asked.) In Summer 2006, I attended a pool party at my friend Brittany's house. I put a photo of us on Facebook and Myspace; I'm in an olive polo shirt, she's in a green bikini. When we were cleaning out my uncle's office 2 1/2 years later, I found a printout of that photo, except I was cropped out.
My uncle put family first, but in hindsight he couldn't get out of his own way. In the early 2000s, he was too proud to admit that his parents (my grandparents) needed more help than he could offer. We put Grandpa in a home and eventually hired Visiting Angels for Grandma, pretty much at his protest. Three years after his death, Visiting Angels became insufficient and we put her in a home; he would've fought that, too.
As I've stated in past blogs, my only living family are my sister and some cousins. The majority of my relatives died in old age; Jim obviously didn't. I have a "found family" of friends that I can fall back on, and Barb (his girlfriend in the 2000s) is still a presence in our lives. In spite of my struggles, I can only hope he's proud.
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