Page 7

A couple of days later reality kicks in: seeing snow means riding through snow (and the ice and weather that comes with it) in a Greyhound bus.  I start checking the weather in areas where I would be traveling.  In Denver, the forecast is 5 degrees during the day, -7 at night. It’s about the same in Cheyenne, WY.  Portland is experiencing a snow storm, and drivers are abandoning their cars in the middle of the road because traffic isn’t moving and they can’t get anywhere.  I call Greyhound to find out what would happen if part of my trip were cancelled.  I’m not sure the customer service rep understood how far away Salt Lake City was from here, and/or my concern about being stranded there.  I call the Oregon company who will be handling the last portion of my trip.  He answers my multiple questions patiently, my concern is slightly mitigated.

I start to think that maybe I’ll just try to work through it over here in the heat, but it looks like my Uncle Sam never left that same small geographical area in his entire life.  I can’t say goodbye to him clear across the country, I know that I will need to go back. The weather gets worse- the northern part of the country is facing record low temperatures.  Do I somehow need to pay penance, to the point that I’m putting myself in danger or at risk of never even making it to my ending point due to travel cancellations? Why am I doing this?

Earlier in the year I had tried to find a job in a different city, and recently a hurricane had torn through the south, hitting the cities (some of which hadn’t experienced hurricane warnings in years, let alone an actual hurricane) I had been considering while completely missing the city I lived in.  Now, I was contemplating traveling across country, and the places I would go through were experiencing brutal cold.  Maybe there was a message somewhere, but I knew I had to get out of town, go somewhere, take this trip now.  I watched the weather zealously, and eventually the forecast improved.  I bought the ticket, spending an extra 20.00 because I had waited.

The costs just kept adding up.  I found incredible deals on gloves, a hat, a scarf.  I scrounge up another great deal on fleece lined boots, which I only found because another customer had returned them unused; stores in my area do not receive shipments of warm footwear. I ordered long johns, a phrase that I hadn’t used in years, to be delivered to a store close to where I would be dropping my dog off for boarding. I booked the hotel and the rental car.

The weekend before the trip I came back from shopping for supplies for the trip, mentally cringing at the money I had spent.  I walked in the door to find a destroyed throw rug. The mess had seeped through to the carpet.  I sat down heavily in a chair and desperately wanted to go down to the Greyhound station, board a bus, and tell them to take me anywhere but here.  Instead of spending the afternoon packing, I spent it cleaning up a dog mess.

My dog likes to be held up across my chest, and one evening I’m sitting, crying, with warm dog up to my heart.  I can feel something break apart deep inside my chest. The weight has dispersed for the moment, I feel lighter.  The emails from my sister continue to discuss family issues and news, she states that she too has stopped communicating with certain members of the family.  I am being sucked back into this world, and I can feel it closing around me again. I spend evenings crying on the couch when I get home.  It is comforting to know that I can grieve, though I’m still not sure what I’m grieving for: knowing that I’ll never see Uncle Sam, that I wasn’t told anything about him, that he didn’t live the life I thought he had, my childhood.  I just know that to me, he was my favorite uncle.  The weight of the grief is back, in my stomach mostly, and I carry it around with me.  Feelings like this are why some addicts use, and the more they numb the feelings, the less they can handle them, the more they need.  I can understand it, almost, but I just sit in the weight. I will be able to make it through.

I debate whether to let my sister know that I will be traveling.  I will only be there 3 days, she has let me know which cemetery Uncle Sam is buried in, I don’t know if it will seem as if I am trying to impose.  I research place to visit and things to do in the area.  In the end, I let her know and leave it up to her.  She sends me my grandmother’s number.  The next day during my lunch hour I pick up the phone, take a deep breath, and call.  I don’t know if my sister let her know I might be calling, but she doesn’t seem that surprised to hear from me.  She keeps saying that it’s good to hear my voice, that it’s good to know that I’m alive.  She’s surprised when I tell her where I am.  She tells me that Uncle Sam is not buried or been put anywhere yet, confirming what the chapel told me instead of my sister’s version.  I am almost relieved.  I couldn’t picture how visiting a grave was going to help me, this might give me something to do, some closure.  I plan on asking if I can disperse the ashes in some way.

It is difficult for me to call; it is difficult for me to talk to her.  I don’t know what to say.  I don’t know if she’ll be angry that I left without a word.  I don’t really know these people any more.

The day of the trip is bright and clear, a balmy 60 degrees with a forecast over 70. The sun is blinding through my windshield, I flip down my visor.  I’m late anyway, so I stop at a doughnut shop to pick up something for my coworkers. I carefully choose the doughnuts as if it is the most important thing in the world.  I’m already nervous.

Random edits

As I’m driving home that night, I struggle to adjust to this new view on Uncle Sam, and not let it affect my memories of him. It may have been better that I didn't learn this about Sam until now, when my education has helped to prepare me for the realities of drug addiction, and I have a greater understanding and compassion toward those who live it.  By the time I make it home, I have mostly reconciled my image of him with this new information.  It doesn’t change my memories of him.
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I wonder if this “initial drug arrest” is why we no longer visited Uncle Sam, if my father stopped the visits after this.  There is a vague tickling memory of my brother and I being sat down and told we would not be able to visit Uncle Sam any more, and possibly some arguing between our parents before this discussion.  If this was the case, it would turn out to be ironic, because the woman my father started dating 3 months after my mother died (and married 8 months after her death) candidly admitted to a history of excessive drug and alcohol use when she was younger, and her oldest son, my new stepbrother, whom I had met only a couple of times, died of a drug overdose in January of the next year at age 19, 1 month before my thirteenth birthday and less than a year after my mother’s death. The last time I saw this new stepbrother, he had visited our house, and was standing in our living room with his back to our big black wood stove, arms behind his back, much like my father’s usual pose when he came in from outside and was trying to get warm.

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Not that there was much competition for “favorite” uncle and/or aunt.  My father’s sister, Rhonda, I remember meeting once: we visited the cranberry “fields” where she worked, which was a flat lake of water with cranberries floating on it, and her cabin way out in some woods, where I’m pretty sure she lived without electricity, only a generator. I also remember meeting my father’s brother once: he and his wife had come down from Montana and were renting a big house on the beach with a massive array of windows highlighting a view of the beach and ocean.   As for my mother’s other brother, I only remember one rather formal Thanksgiving.  I don’t think my mother liked him, I remember not clicking with his children, and formal has never really been my thing.

Page 6

As I'm driving home from work, I wonder if my grandmother couldn't afford the funeral and burial.  But why didn't my other uncle help her? Sam was his brother after all.

The next morning, I send a short email to my sister thanking her for letting me know about my father and asking about my grandmother and Uncle Sam.  I'm wondering where his remains ended up, mainly. Maybe if my grandmother is alive I can find out about their lives and what happened.

The reply comes: Unfortunately, Sam passed away back in 2010 of congestive heart failure.  The drug use and weight caused his death and he died at Grams house where he was living at the time.  He never quite got his life back together after his divorce from Jenny and his initial drug arrest. 


Oh.


Wait, what?

Page 5

Monday morning I get to work and start calculating how soon I can call the chapel.  I try to find their hours on their website with no luck.  I call to see if I get a recording that will tell, I get a live answering service. 


"Oh," I say, "I didn't realize that anyone would be there.  I was just trying to find out their hours."


"They come in at 8," she said.


That means 11 AM.  I fidget, watch the clock, try to focus.  At 11:20 I put the phone in the middle of my desk and call.


I introduce myself.  I state that I was looking up someone I knew a long time ago, and only found a couple of sentences stating that he had died and when.  She asks for his name.  "Sam," I reply.  She sounds surprised when she repeats his last name.  "Yes," I say.  "That item I found stated he died in early June 2010."


"I'll have to find his file," she states.  My heart sinks.  So it is true. "I'll see what information we can give out.  Can I call you back?"


I keep the phone in the middle of my desk.  I don't attend a staff holiday lunch, because I forgot to give her my cell number instead.  Finally, the phone rings. 


"He didn't have a public service," she states.  "He didn't?" I ask. I start to get the feeling that something is wrong. "No. It was just a simple cremation, then he was released to him mom.  She didn't want a public service or anything."


"Ok." I say.  I can't say anything else.  The tears are starting.  "Thank you."


And I realize that in order to find out what has happened to Uncle Sam, I am going to have to respond to my sister.

Page 4

So I have a brilliant idea: find out where Uncle Sam is buried, head back across the country, and say goodbye.  I don't think of visiting my father while I'm there, I have said goodbye to him a long time ago, even if he didn't realize it. This idea, as wild as it seems, appeals to me on many levels.  I can retrace the journey I took to leave my past, and finally lay it all to rest.  I can truly put it behind me and figure out my next steps. 


Since I finished my degree, I have felt the need for a change, something new.  This year I attempted to find a job in another state, to find a new location, maybe a place I could call home.  I never meant my current locale to be permanent.  It has never been home.  Where I come from no longer feels like home. I am as out of place as ever. 


I have not been able to travel for the last few years, mostly for financial reasons and the state of my car.  I miss it.  The need to go somewhere, to wander, has been making itself louder with each passing day.  Here is the perfect reason to go, to get out of town, to escape.  And I have a break from work coming up, so that I won't even need to use much of my vacation/sick time, not that I have much accrued yet anyway.


I realize, based on my reading of Stephanie Plum's grandmother's fascination with funerals, that chapels are probably busy on the weekends, so I decide instead to find out how I can travel back in time, and I will call the chapel on Monday morning to find out if they can tell me anything about his service/burial site. 


I quickly realize that the flight prices are astronomical.  I spent less to fly to London a few years ago. I'm using money I should be saving toward a car/moving/getting a new apartment.  I'm charging to a card I'm trying to pay off. I check the bus: 3+ days but so much cheaper.  I try trains: still astronomical and actually longer travel time than the bus.  I go back to the bus: the route takes me through 2 states that I have yet to visit, and I will be able to redo my previous journey, almost. Not only will I be able to visit Uncle Sam's gravesite and say goodbye to him and my past, I'll be able to travel across the U.S.  I'm excited by this point.  I disregard the need for a rental, the need to research hotels, the need to figure out how to exist on a bus for more than 3 days.  I can feel the yearning.

Page 3

I'm not sure what exactly I'm grieving for.  I haven't seen him in 25 years. But somehow, learning of his death after the fact, with barely a mention of it anywhere, and his age when he died hits me.  He was only 54 years old at his death.  Which means two of the three siblings have died: my mother at age 39, and Uncle Sam at age 54. (Maybe I should start going to the gym after all.) Did my grandmother live through another of her children's deaths?


I could be grieving the loss of my fun, favorite uncle, or the loss of the possibility of creating a relationship with him, or the happy memories of a time when we took road trips as a family, as a unit.  We bundled up in the car, drove down our private dirt road, and took off.  Often, the trip was at least partially in the dark, with looming trees, around and through mountains.  There a few tunnels in Oregon that literally cut through the mountain.  My father would flash his lights and honk his horn (which evidently was the accepted protocol when driving through these tunnels, at least that's what our parents told us), and we always tried to be awake for it.  At the end of the journey, we tumbled back out of the car into hugs and laps.  I definitely remember being held on Sam and Jenny's laps and the hugs.


I also remember beer, on the part of my father and Uncle Sam. But this was nothing new, as beer played a role in my father's socializing with his cousins also.  Later, as a young adult, I wondered briefly about alcoholism and Uncle Sam.  But now, realizing how young he was six years ago, I did the mental calculations and was staggered at how young he must have been when I was born (19?) and during the time of our visits (24-25?).   They were just having fun and enjoying our time together.


Then, all of a suddent, our parents told us about the divorce and that we would not be visiting their house any more.  I didn't understand why one had to do with the other, but I didn't see Uncle Sam again until that afternoon at my grandparents' house. I have always wondered why he didn't contact us, or step in, or do something.  There were so many adults in our lives, including my father, and they had to have known, and they didn't do anything.


I also didn't know that when he walked out my grandparents' door that day that I would never see him again.  Maybe he tried, maybe he didn't know he could. My father was already busy creating a different family unit with my stepmother, and I don't know how difficult it was for my mother's family to reach him.  I could have tried, but I definitely didn't know I could.  And I was too wrapped up in my own teenage angst and issues and life to worry about it. After I graduated high school and started paying a few lightning visits to my grandparents on my own I could have asked about him.  But I didn't even think about it. Then I left, and left him behind with everyone else.


I always pictured him getting married again, having children of his own, living his life. And now I am attempting to wrap my head around the idea that Uncle Sam no longer exists in the world, that no obituary seems to exist, that no survivors seem to exist.  Turns out Uncle Sam and I have something in common.

Sam

The news of my father’s possible impending death came with one primary feeling: relief.  For the last 20 years, every time I even thought of my family, I would take a deep breath filled with the freedom of being an entire country away.  Now, I felt truly free, as if a huge weight had disappeared.  I began to think of who in the family I would actually contact on the very slim chance I decided to reach out.  I knew immediately: my Uncle Sam.

I tentatively searched his name online.  The only item I could find was a two line obituary stating the day he died and his age when he died. Perhaps searching for him wasn’t such a great idea, as learning of his death so soon after learning the news about my father was a bit too much death all at once, even for me.

One weekend when I was twelve, during the time period right after my mother died, I was staying at my grandparents' house on the coast.   They were at work, and I was hanging around the house until my grandmother came home.  A knock sounded at the door.  I paused, thinking maybe I should just not answer at all, but I went ahead and asked who it was. “Sam,” came the response.  I grinned, and opened the door. 

“Hi,” he said. “I don’t know if you remember me.”
He seemed happy to see me.

In that second, I decided to play a joke on him, and answered with as serious a face as I could pull off, “No.”

What?” he asked as he came in the house. “You don’t remember me? You used to …”

“I was kidding,” I said.  “Of course I remember you.”  I wouldn’t have let him in if I hadn’t remembered him, but, well, adults.

He stopped right there in the hallway. “You do?”
I took a good look at him, and knew that this was my Uncle Sam: still skinny, with reddish hair and a beard.

He seemed to be waiting for something, so I decided I had to prove it.  “We went to your place several times,” I said. I couldn’t think how to tell him that I remembered driving through the tunnels to get there and back mostly, that the specific details of a picture of his place, of staying there overnight, of a warm, comfy quilt type blanket, were a little hazy.

“Jeanie always said you were smart, but I didn’t realize…” he started.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.” He said.

“How old are you now?” he asked.

“12”

“You’re 12 now?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“No reason.”

There then ensued a discussion of how I was going to fix myself lunch during which I assured him that I could figure out how to work a microwave.

and he seemed to just be standing there waiting for more, so I said, “I remember that you were my favorite uncle.”

“I was?” he said, and started grinning.

“Well, you and Aunt Jenny were my favorite aunt and uncle together,” but seeing him frown, I added with a shrug, “but, well.”

He looked surprised.  Of course I knew about their divorce.  I wanted to know the details, but knew better to ask.

“You could stay and wait for Grandma.” I said.

“I could?”

“Yeah.  It’s not like you’re some random friend of Grandma or Grandpa.  You’re a relative, and I know you. I think you could stay and wait.”  I really wanted him to, b/c I had all sorts of questions about who he was, and his divorce, etc., and I missed him. I tried not to look too eager, though, to hopefully minimize the rejection, just in case he didn't.

He stood there for a minute, evidently thinking, and then said, “No, I just came to pick up something, and I have stuff I really need to do.”

I tried not to show that I was disappointed and responded, “OK.”

“Yeah,” he said, and turned around to head toward the door. “Make sure you lock the door.”

“I will,” said, mentally rolling my eyes.

He closed the door behind him, got into his truck, and drove off to do busy adult things. I locked the door, and went back into the house to hang out with my grandparents' dachshund.

That was the last time I saw Uncle Sam.

Sister

Two days ago my sister sent me this email:

Hello D.D.,

 It has been quite a while since I talked to you and I wasn’t quite sure where you were located until [our brother] said something about you being in [the Bermuda Triangle].  After doing a little research, I found that you were working at the [Amazon library] .  I hope you are enjoying it.

 [Our brother] recently contacted me to tell me that Dad was under hospice care and wasn’t expected to live.  It does look like he has taken a turn for the better so he may make it through the blood infection that he was battling.  I thought you should know as [our brother] thought to tell me.  I haven’t had any contact with either of them since my divorce in 1999 until recently when [our brother] did a friend request on Facebook.  It has been even longer since I have talked to you. 

 How’s life?  What have you been doing?  I see that you finished your education, great job! 

 Thanks,

 *******

She sent it to me from her work email to my work email, which makes it public record. As of this writing, I have not yet decided how I am going to respond.

When I tell people that I am not in contact with my family, they inevitably are baffled, and lecture of the need for family closeness, reconciliation, bonds. My Master's program required students to attend counseling sessions, so we could "see how it worked." My counselor suggested (though I successfully changed the subject) that I forgive my father for his actions (or non action) during/after my childhood.   Memoirs I have read, written by people who describe "difficult" childhoods, discuss their struggle to reconnect with their family and form/create new relationships with their parents in whatever way they can.

I say:

Fuck that.