I had intended my next post to be about a film I saw recently, but before I had the chance to write about it something came up. As these things do, we had a death in my family, those are usually unexpected and this one surely was. My sister messaged my daughter last night to let us know that my uncle Jimmy had died on Saturday. Jimmy was the youngest of my dad's brothers and had been one of my favorite people when I was a kid. He was a few years younger than my mother and barely a teenager when I was born, so he was the fun uncle.
My dad died himself a little over 10 years ago and I have had little contact with that side of the family in the past 20 years. After my parents split up my dad tried really hard to win her back and when he realized it wasn't going to happen he went away and didn't really come back. He was not the greatest husband according to my mom and my mother was his biggest regret, he never realized what he had until she was gone and he never got over her either. Friends and family of his tell me that he regretted the split until he died.
My dad and his brother had that in common. Jimmy had three children with a woman named Katie, a little girl and twin boys. After the boys were born he didn't want to or couldn't get his shit together so Katie left with the kids. I know my uncle regretted it every day of his life, he loved Katie more than anything in the world.
I found out my Uncle passed away Saturday which was about two days before, and I also learned that Katie had died in March almost 90 days exactly before my Uncle Jimmy. I also learned that it was learning of Katie's death that was the beginning of the end for Jimmy. After her death he gave up, and let himself die of a broken heart. 25 years spent apart didn't diminish his feelings for her or his regret over losing her.
I am sad over the passing of both my Aunt Katie and my Uncle Jimmy, but I am heartbroken over the circumstances of their deaths. I have always been a romantic, and to me this is the saddest, most fitting ending to two lives that crossed for a brief time and couldn't make it work.
I don't go through life thinking I have it all together, I know I don't. This makes me wonder if I will have any regrets at the end though. Will there be that one person I never made amends with, or that thing I always wanted to do but never took the chance. I say to myself and anyone who asks that I have absolutely no regrets in life. I would not take anything back, even the bad stuff. I have learned and grown from every experience in my life. I wish the same for everyone else out there, and if you realize you fucked up and let the right one get away, may you get a second chance to make things right.
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