I Miss Men Like This in anticlimatic

That’s my Uncle, one of many, sometime in the 90s. He passed during Covid.

There was no funeral or ceremony because his oldest brother (pictured in the back, hugging his own daughter), who was legally responsible for that stuff, believed the government about their social distancing mandate and was funeral’d out after burying their mother a few weeks prior, so just never had one. Or anything. Everyone just went about their day as if he never lived.

But I can’t stop thinking about him.

History rolled right over him, but he was so extraordinary to me. See the bandage on his hand? He got drunk and shot himself with a pistol. Told everyone for years it was an accident while he was cleaning it. Went off in his hands, something like that. But one evening, also while drunk, he confided that he did it on purpose. Just to see what it would feel like.

He died before his 60th birthday of pneumonia after a life of heavy drinking and smoking caught up with him fast and hard. But he had something of a death wish his entire life. Wrecked at least 3 vehicles, two of them rolled several times over, and climbed out without a scratch.

He loved to fight, but was never angry. It was like he wanted to get pummeled. But because he was so fierce, and tough, AND kind, and empathetic- no one wanted to fight him. Everyone adored him. Yet a reputation for being such a baddie preceded him, that I was once saved from a group of rednecks (that frightened ME at the time, due to their own reputations) because of the respect just being related to the guy commanded.

He had this laugh. Best I can describe it is a longer, more drawn out, and a tiny bit higher pitched version of Gimli’s laugh, after Legolas cracks the joke about finding him a box. It was incredibly contagious, something otherworldly charming about it- and it was almost constant. The man lived in this constant mirth (the booze), but had this extremely sad person deep within that it covered up.

His twin brother died in a car accident when he was 17. A car that he should have been in also, but by random chance wasn’t. He always talked about him. See, the one who died was the leader. The dominant twin. When he died, I think half of his soul disappeared. They were so incredibly close. And I think he tried following him to the grave for the rest of his life. Although there were many bold gestures, it was the slow poison that ultimately reunited him with his brother.