My mother's younger brother passed away yesterday from heart failure.
I feel the need to share this maybe to make it real. To help me accept that he's gone.
He'd had a heart attack just over a year ago and had stated that he felt he didn't have long. It appears as if he spent some time getting his affairs in order and making sure his debts were paid.
On Thursday, he drove my grandmother down here to the coast to attend a funeral for a distant aunt. Then Friday he gave my mother his bag with his journals and papers, his intention to join our family Saturday on the Island for a few days before returning to his home in the mountains.
However, sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, he pulled over in front of a gas station where his heart finally gave into the monumental stresses it endured. He was 56.
Like the rocks he studied, Uncle Brian was always under duress and frequently angry. I know some stemmed from the fact he had a hard time finding work as a surveyor, some because of his troubled relationship with his father who passed away several years ago, injustices in the world brought about by greedy people but I suspect that his greatest demon was that he was alone.
He didn't have any kids, never married and as long as I have been alive, he never had a girlfriend and save for a very few close friends, he was always alone. I suspect his heart was hurt very badly when he was younger and he never recovered. He made a choice at some point not to put the effort in to meet another who he could share the good things in life with and think he made that choice because he didn't want to lose again. He was a afraid and maybe what pains me is that I suspect I know how he felt. We were very similar in some ways.
But we are also different and I don't think it's too late for me to avoid the same fate and I hope that doesn't sound selfish and I think he would want me to make different choices as well.
In fact, I have a lot to thank uncle Brian for. As a child, he would entertain my brothers and I with fantastical stories of adventure of which he was always the star, and he always had time to help us build things with Lego or orchestrate massive battles with our action figures. As a teen, he introduced me to the delights of Asian cuisine and the wonders to be found throughout Vancouver's downtown core. He took me to see the Rolling Stones when I was 16 and it remains one of the best musical experiences of my life. He was a very funny man and when he wanted to be social, he could get along with the best of them. He supported the little guy and wouldn't back down in a fight, either physical or verbal. He was everything an Uncle should be I guess. Fun and a bit subversive.
Rest Peacefully Brian. You don't need to fight anymore.
I feel the need to share this maybe to make it real. To help me accept that he's gone.
He'd had a heart attack just over a year ago and had stated that he felt he didn't have long. It appears as if he spent some time getting his affairs in order and making sure his debts were paid.
On Thursday, he drove my grandmother down here to the coast to attend a funeral for a distant aunt. Then Friday he gave my mother his bag with his journals and papers, his intention to join our family Saturday on the Island for a few days before returning to his home in the mountains.
However, sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, he pulled over in front of a gas station where his heart finally gave into the monumental stresses it endured. He was 56.
Like the rocks he studied, Uncle Brian was always under duress and frequently angry. I know some stemmed from the fact he had a hard time finding work as a surveyor, some because of his troubled relationship with his father who passed away several years ago, injustices in the world brought about by greedy people but I suspect that his greatest demon was that he was alone.
He didn't have any kids, never married and as long as I have been alive, he never had a girlfriend and save for a very few close friends, he was always alone. I suspect his heart was hurt very badly when he was younger and he never recovered. He made a choice at some point not to put the effort in to meet another who he could share the good things in life with and think he made that choice because he didn't want to lose again. He was a afraid and maybe what pains me is that I suspect I know how he felt. We were very similar in some ways.
But we are also different and I don't think it's too late for me to avoid the same fate and I hope that doesn't sound selfish and I think he would want me to make different choices as well.
In fact, I have a lot to thank uncle Brian for. As a child, he would entertain my brothers and I with fantastical stories of adventure of which he was always the star, and he always had time to help us build things with Lego or orchestrate massive battles with our action figures. As a teen, he introduced me to the delights of Asian cuisine and the wonders to be found throughout Vancouver's downtown core. He took me to see the Rolling Stones when I was 16 and it remains one of the best musical experiences of my life. He was a very funny man and when he wanted to be social, he could get along with the best of them. He supported the little guy and wouldn't back down in a fight, either physical or verbal. He was everything an Uncle should be I guess. Fun and a bit subversive.
Rest Peacefully Brian. You don't need to fight anymore.
heartbaker:
Sorry to hear about the loss