Elena 
Uncle Sam passed away this morning around 5:00 a.m. It was peaceful. He was ready.
Uncle Sam was my Grandpa’s brother. He always had a great sense of humor and a naughty smile with a twinkle in his eye to go with it. I loved him for that.
He married a beautiful woman from Scandinavia – my Aunt Lucy. I remember her as being very kind. She had a beautiful smile and was always pleasant and nice to us kids. It impressed me that she always remembered everyone’s name.
Aunt Lucy and Uncle Sam had 5 children, and our family was always close to them. Their oldest daughter Joanne, became very sick when she was 12 years old back in the late 1930s- early 1940s. This was at a time when the national highway system was nothing like it was today, and Uncle Sam and Aunt Lucy drove what they had downstate Michigan to live with my grandparents off and on while Joanne received treatment for spinal cancer. She eventually died.
I remember many years later Aunt Lucy and Uncle Sam’s house burned down and they lost everything, including all of their mementos and pictures of Joanne, so everyone in the family went through their things and donated pictures from their photo albums so that they could have some memory of their daughter. That impressed me as a youngster too!
Uncle Sam was a big fisherman. Told big fish stories too. Everyone is going to miss those!
My son Sam will be a little sad today. He didn’t know Uncle Sam real well, but he knew he was a special person and that’s why he has his name. And my Sammy is just sensitive enough to know how important that is.
Unfortunately I am now less than 2 weeks from having this baby, but I am just aching to go this funeral. It would be a good 8 hour trip by car. I’m thinking though that if my sister goes, maybe I’ll send Sam with her. On the other hand this might be something Mr. Pete will do and with frequent stops, we could do it.
It’s an interesting position to be sitting in. Maybe this is what it means to truly embrace “middle age.” I have a new baby, new life to bring into the world. I have my young family of school aged kids, and Calvin plowing his way through high school. So anxious to become an adult, but not there yet. And then on the other side I’m watching the old aunts and uncles I knew and loved since I was a baby, passing away every year. My grandpa’s family had 10 kids in it. They are now down to 3. Everyone of those folks enriched my life and everyone was a loss.
It just serves to remind me that this life is such a special gift, but it’s not forever at least in this world. I need to use the time I have left to prepare for the next one, to embrace every minute, get up from every fall, learn from every mistake and work harder to “be perfect” as Jesus told us to be.
Uncle Sam wasn’t perfect, but I think he used his time very well and was probably as close as one could get in this earthly realm. He did all the important stuff right. He was a fantastic husband. An excellent father, beloved grandfather, and a good patriarch. I remember how my grandpa loved him so much as a brother. He was a man of deep Christian Faith too.
I rejoice that now he is really with his Savior, reunited with his lovely Lucy and that dear daughter he lost so many years ago. May he rest in peace.
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