Sands Of Time Cont.

funerals are hard for me so if i seem to jump around its cos i'm writing things as i remember them. i'm so drained right now that i don't even have the gumption to invent psuedo names. i'm just gonna tell this.
to begin: this was my uncle pete, my mothers youngest brother. he was the 5th son born of 13 kids. the last living brother on my moms side. one of my favorite uncles. uncle pete was diagnosed with diabetes some time ago. he gave himself a shot in the belly every morning. he told me that when i saw him at my last uncles funeral. he also told me he'd never been baptised but that he was too mean to die. he was diagnosed with cancer last september. he was a very straight speaking man. he didn't mince words & at times it might have seemed harsh. you just had to know him to know that what he thought was what he said. he never meant to hurt anyone he was just honest. he'd give you the shirt off his back & do anything in the world for a person. whether it be friend or foe. he was a very good hearted man who loved his family, his horses & his dogs. i remember spending the weekend at his house when we were kids & he'd wrestle & play with us like a kid himself. he always has something cool to do. we used to ride mini bikes & swim in the swimming hole, ride horses or just swing on the swingset he built. he was a heck of a builder. one time he put a cable up between trees with a hook that we used to swing on. over the years the trees grew so tall that you had to climb the steps he built up the tree to get to the cable but it was still fun. my cousins used to goad other cousins & neighbors into climbing up & swinging down the cable to see if they could do it without getting hurt. sadistic? yes. but fun? too much! his oldest son regaled us with lots of stories tonight. things i'd forgotten. memories came flooding back as he talked. i'm sure my dreams tonight will be filled with uncle pete & his smiling face. laughing with us as we pull some prank on an unsuspecting victim previously determined.
he had lots of friends & family there to pay their last respects. and flowers were everywhere. its been a long time since i've seen that many flowers at one funeral. the service was different. uncle pete wasn't a church goer, per se. he carried his love & belief in his heart. his wife on the other hand attends a pentacostal church that she had reside over the services. the minister spoke in tongues & did his preacher thing that uncle pete would have rolled his eyes at. those of us that have never had much to do with the jehovah witness belief were slammed a few times in his memorial. he urged us to find the right church in order to be saved. he talked that he had met uncle pete a few times (which i deduced meant about 10 minutes maybe 3 times since he'd become sick) & gave him a prayer cloth that he looked at kinda funny but accepted with a few expletives. but he never mentioned the fact that uncle pete always had a cigarette or that he had a jolly laugh that was infectious. i didn't feel that he knew uncle pete. he was just doing a job. he did bless him in the casket with holy water. i'd never seen that before. then he went to aunt nellie & spoke to her on bended knee. i'd never seen that before either.
i met cousins that i didn't know even existed tonight. its strange to sit in a room full of people that you recognize because you see the family resemblance but don't know. i picked out the ones i was sure had to be cousins & asked. they in turn took me to ones they knew were cousins. i came away with a feeling of being a little better connected to moms family. my family. on the way home i got to thinking that i have 4 aunts left from mommy. i love them all deeply & i probably don't have alot of years before there will be none. i want to keep a better connection with them. someday we, the cousins i have, will be the family. we'll be replacing the aunts i have now. i'm one of the oldest cousins left & when i die i want them all to know me. i want to know them. i want them to exchange fun memories of me. i want the tears to be cos they're laughing so hard over the good times we had & not how they missed out on knowing me.
one thing i can't let go of right now is the fact that my aunt wouldn't allow me to see him before he passed on. i had called & asked if i could come out but she kept telling me we needed to let him get stronger. although we all knew that wasn't gonna happen. she told me he wouldn't know me & he was out of it. i understand that he was on strong medication but he still had lucid moments. i could have at least hugged him one last time, told him goodby & that i loved him.
he will be sorely missed.
later.