rejoices
Random word list:
underliking
ill-effaceable
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rejoices
Word chosen: rejoices
Definition: To feel joyful; be delighted.
Free association word list:
happy
joyful
Joy
My Name Is Earl
Randy
Earl
Prison
Uncle Nathan
son’s name
nice
helpful
giving
caring
wise
generous
donations
charity
water buffalo
scary woman
warm bowl of water
not going there
Vince
J.J.
skating
youth
fun
careless
Word chosen: Uncle Nathan
Writing:
My Uncle Nathan was my mom’s little brother. After a long hard life, he passed away in early 2000. I don’t remember the date, but I remember the day. I was out of work, and I had two job interviews that day. I was dressed nice, had tons of copies of my resume with me, and I was ready to go get employed. I decided to check my email one last time before leaving the house to make sure that nothing had changed on the time or location of my two interviews. I only had one new email, and it was an email from my Aunt Jane telling me (and others) that my Uncle Nathan had passed away.
I was crushed. Nathan was my favorite uncle growing up, and into adulthood. I knew that I needed one of these two jobs that I was interviewing for, so I pushed back my tears, and focused on what needed to be done. Once I was done with the interviews, and I was safely home, I re-read the email, and sat in my chair and cried for quite a long time.
My Uncle Nathan grew up in an abusive home. My biological grandfather was an abusive drunk, but my mom told me that the massive violence that he was capable of was never directed at my mom or Nathan; they were too young. However, he grew up watching this violence, and I’m sure that affected him. Fortunately for everyone involved my biological grandfather bailed out when some of the children were very young, and my Mama Stella managed to find the great man, Papa James, that I grew up knowing as my grandfather. I never knew that he wasn’t my real grandfather — wait… He was my real grandfather, but just not biologically.
Back to the point…
Nathan always had an awesome work ethic. He was always employed. He always had hard jobs though. He was a mechanic, welder, construction worker, and things like that. I don’t say that in a derisive way, though. I have respect for anyone that shows up for work on time, puts in an honest day’s work, and then goes home to be a good man. I don’t care if they are a brain surgeon or a welder. A hard day’s work goes a long way.
When I was fairly young (maybe 7 years old or so?), my Uncle Nathan was driving past a cop writing a ticket, and his work truck back fired. The cop thought that Nathan was firing a gun at him, and immediately chased him down. When Nathan pulled over, he cop yanked him from the car, busted his head open on a curb, and started cuffing him so violently that Nathan’s wrists were slashed open. Nathan, trying to defend himself, knocked the cop down. The cop hit his head on the same curb, and was knocked out. In a moment of panic, my Uncle Nathan ran. He jumped back in his truck and took off.
When the cop came too, he radioed out about an “armed and dangerous” criminal on the loose that had “assaulted” him. Nathan was caught not too much longer later, and he was convicted of assaulting a police officer. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison. This devastated our entire family because we all knew that there was no way that Nathan would ever do something like that except for in self defense. I remember driving all the way across Texas to Huntsville a few times during his incarceration to visit him. He seemed beaten, broken, and down. I know that he was putting on a brave face for all of us, and we seemed to genuinely cheer him up a bit. It’s hard to be cheerful in a place like that though.
Nathan, being the man that he was, was released early for good behavior. I was around 9 or 10 years old when he was released. He hopped on a bus, and came home to Midland. He never told anyone that he was coming home. His very first stop wasn’t my Mama Stella’s house. His first stop was to see my mom and me.
I remember being the first to the door to open it when the doorbell rang. I opened the door, saw Nathan, and screamed in delight. Nathan charged through the door, grabbed me up in a huge hug, and was so happy that he was crying. Mom, Jill, and my step-dad jumped to their feet at all of this. Mom was so happy that she started to cry right away too. My step-dad, who had never seen Nathan before, thought that we were under attack or something. My mom had to hold him back while things were explained. It was like our family was complete — for a while — again.
I remember that we all went out to dinner that night, and Nathan ate a huge steak. He hadn’t had a good steak in a very long time. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had any spicy or greasy food in his system for a few years. The steak really tore him up, and he ended up throwing up for a while that night. Once the grease was out of his system, he was back to normal.
We spent the next week driving everywhere together. He was seeing old friends, family, and just talking to me. Looking back on it, he was trying to recapture a sense of normalcy. We never did talk about his time in prison. He always wanted to know what was going on in my life. He was probably the first adult to treat me like an adult, and this may be one of the reasons that I love him so dearly. He would intently listen to me ramble on about elementary school, GEM, friends, computers, and all sorts of other stuff. He always told me that he knew that I would make it big because of my smarts, and that he was very proud of me.
This made me very happy. I finally had someone that was treating me as an adult instead of a kid. This is probably part of what helped me stay on track. I knew that someone was proud of me, and had high expectations of me. I could disappoint myself without much repercussion, but there was no way that I was going to let Nathan down. No. Way. Ever.
The years passed, and Nathan moved away, but he always made a point to stay in touch. During the low times in my life, I would avoid him because I didn’t want him to see me failing. Maybe if I had talked to him, he would have had some words of wisdom for me to help me out. I just didn’t want him to see me that low. I didn’t want to disappoint him. I couldn’t let that happen.
When I finally got my life back on track, I was in San Antonio, and he was in Austin. We saw each other about once a month, and he was back to telling me how proud of me he was. He always had a different junker car that would barely make it around. I’d always ask him what happened to his hold car, and the story was the same, “Someone else needed it more than me, so I gave it to them.”
Life took some turns for me, and I ended up in Colorado by way of Montana. I never did talk to Nathan again after I moved to Montana. He didn’t have a phone, and I never did have his address. I thought of him fairly often, but after the email that contained the announcement of his death, I wished that I had put some effort into contacting him more often.
Nathan was an important part of my life, and I wish he was still around to tell me how proud he is of me. I wish he was around to see the next Nathan, my son, come along, and watch him grow up as he watched me grow up. I miss him dearly. I have a handful of photos on my cork board in my office, and Uncle Nathan is one of them. He’s at the top of the board, above all of the cruft and miscellaneous stuff that I have on my board. He’s at the top because he is one of the most important people to me in the world.
Looking forward, I can only hope that I manage to raise my Nathan to be as kind, generous, helpful, hard-working, diligent, and wonderful as the uncle that I remember so fondly.
