St. Patrick

When I was a young girl, my uncle Pat was easily my favorite. The youngest of my mother's three brothers, he lived with us until we moved to Tennessee. I had unlimited access to him and he had unlimited time for me. At the time, he was either a senior in high school or recently graduated, and to my eight-year-old mind (which didn't connect sex to the word), Uncle Pat was as much a boyfriend as an uncle -- someone with whom you snuggle, laugh, and play. I loved, loved, loved my Uncle Pat. He, in some ways more than my father did, became the model for what I would look for in later relationships and I often find myself involved with men closer to Pat's age than to my own.

In the twenty-some years since my family moved away from Michigan, I've lost contact with most of my aunts and uncles, who knew me only as a child. As people, we have very little connection, but as family, that connection is unavoidable. I still love my uncle Pat, but it's been years since I've seen or talked to him, which is what makes this news so difficult: he's dying. He's been given a few days. Not a year, not months, not even a week. Days.

We've known for months that his chances of defeating the cancer he's been battling weren't good, but now it seems they are nil. There is a call I need to make, but I don't know how to do it. How do you call a man who you haven't spoken to in years and tell him that you love him? How do you cross that gap without making it obvious that this call is goodbye? He has so much to deal with in these few days; am I hurting or helping to strike him with yet another reminder that someone he's loved is calling him now because he won't be there to answer later? It seems more cruel than kind.

What do you say to someone you love but barely know? And how do you say it without crying? Aren't there already more tears than he can suffer? Isn't it hard enough to live your last few days surrounded by people who know they are your last without the constant ringing reminder of the thing you want most desperately to forget? The thing you don't want to be true.

How can I be one of those reminders? ... And how can I not?