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My uncle died suddenly last week. He was in his late seventies. He had just come home from the office. He had walked the fourteen blocks to and from there as he did every day, mostly five days a week, but occasionally on Saturdays. He got up after dinner and, from what we could gather, was on his way to the bathroom. He never made it. My aunt found him lying in the hallway. He wasn’t breathing. He had no pulse. The paramedics came but said there was nothing that could be done. He had a smile on his face.

We were all shocked. So sudden. So unexpected. In mid-stride. But the more we talked about things after his funeral, the more we were consoled that this was the kind of end he would have wanted. That any of us would want.

He was the last of the old ones from my father’s generation. The one whose men, when they were youngsters, had been called to serve. To storm Normandy. Take Iwo Jima. And hold the Choisin Reservoir. My uncle had served in Korea. He shared with me that he once, as he put it, “had to volunteer” to drive a deuce and half truck across a two-mile long minefield so that a convoy of trucks could follow behind him. Or not–depending on the fate of his own vehicle. When he safely reached the far side of the minefield, the rest of his company followed closely behind. They swarmed around his truck, cheering him, and urging him to climb down. He refused to get out of the cab. Everyone thought it was because he was shy. It wasn’t. “I was so scared,” he confessed, “that I’d somehow let loose and pissed all over myself and I didn’t want anyone to see it.” The honor guard that flanked his coffin had no hint of the reluctant courage he had exhibited.

As families do, the “kids” all gathered after friends and well-wishers were gone. We shared stories about my uncle. How he had once put a live, five-pound lobster, with the rubber bands off, into the shower while my dad was washing the shampoo out of his eyes. The time he had absentmindedly put a hot cigarette lighter into the pocket of his sport jacket. How it caught fire and started filling the car up with smoke. And how my uncle ran around the car looking for where the fire was coming from. How he had traveled six and half hours in the dead of night, on frozen, back country roads, with only one head lamp working, to be there when my brother was born.

I looked around. No kids here. Not anymore. Here were the same receding hair lines, graying temples, bulging waistlines, and sagging double chins that we, as kids, had once watched reconvene every time one of the grandparents passed. Now it was my children’s turn to roll their eyes, shovel in more left-over sandwiches, and getting tired of being told much they had grown since the last time

It was a cycle. My son complained to me how boring funerals were. I had echoed the same complaint to my father once. My dad had told me: “Just wait. At first, funerals are boring. Then they become precious. And, finally, they’re alarming because soon it’s going to be your turn—your funeral. You’re going to be the guest of honor.” He explained to me that going to funerals was akin to standing on a multi-generational conveyor belt that’s carrying everyone towards the abyss. At first, you’re hardly aware of standing on it. Then you realize everyone who’s been standing in front of you is gone. And then you’re painfully aware that you are now the last generation, the one rolling towards the end. And there’s no one left but you.

I repeated my father’s words to my son. He shrugged. I’m sure I did too. Once. But not now. Now I’m listening hard and what do I hear? “Please watch your step. The escalator is coming to an end. Please watch your step….”

Tags: courage, fond memories, smile, well wishers

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