The twilight of my mind

My uncle died today. It has taken me several hours staring at my computer screen to finally put those words into the finality of black and white. A great light has gone out of my life. The man who was more my father than my father is gone.

I remember the times when he hooked a wagon up to the back of the riding lawn mower and pulled my brother and I around the yard. I remember him taking the two of us to a special little bakery in Kansas City where we could get cinnamon cakes. I remember sleeping in the guest room while he read me bedtime stories.

I remember with fondness all of the times I learned lessons from him – lessons he did not even know he was teaching. I learned from his generosity and his love for teaching. I learned how to take seriously my moral obligations and how to live for a unique vision of the good life. I still can hear the two of us debating modern educational policy and the role of technology in the living room.

I loved him. I miss him.

And I always will.

"Music, when soft voices die"
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory,
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.