A Returned Christmas Card
December 26, 2005
My father’s brother and his son Michael traveled to Lawrence 8 years ago this month for my father’s funeral. Uncle Jim’s oldest son James P. had always been sickly and could not make the trip.
My uncle was 2 years older than my father. He had enlisted in the Army during World War II and over his career he had advanced to the rank of full bird Colonel. He had taught at the war college in Maryland and worked at the Pentagon. He did two tours of duty on the General’s staff in Vietnam. For as long as I could remember, he had lived in Suitland, Maryland.
Every once in a while, until her death in 1976, he would return home to visit his mother. I remember one time him bringing James P. along. I was a young boy and James P. was seven years older than I. It was great fun to have an older cousin around if only for a few days.
While home, my uncle would help out around my grandmother’s apartment. One of my clearest memories was of him standing in the pantry in a bright white sleeveless undershirt painting my grandmother’s old sink with white enamel paint.
I vaguely recall, my father and I once visiting his house in Suitland – but maybe that is just in my mind.
Even when I too lived in Maryland, I never visited him. I did visit my mother’s sister and her husband who lived in Arlington, VA but my Uncle Jim was more of a mystery. The soldier who appeared from time to time and then was out of touch for a few years.
When he was passed over for General, he retired from the Army. My mother’s sister said that there was a small article in the Washington Post about his retirement so he must have been well known in at least some quarters. His wife, aunt Peg who was 5 years older than him, passed away in 1995. I don’t think that retirement fit him well and the loss of his wife of some 45 years was another blow. I think out of loneliness he began calling my father more frequently. I think they became closer during this time.
Then, when my father’s colon cancer returned, they talked even more often.
The one pleasant outcome of my father’s passing was the opportunity for my sisters, my stepmother and I to reconnect with Uncle Jim and to meet his son Michael. Standing in the receiving line at the wake, sitting in the living room at my dad’s house and spending an afternoon with him at my house, we had an opportunity to talk about many things: my career, his career, politics, government, world affairs. After the loss of a father a reconnection with his brother was a small but important comfort.
Since dad’s death, I have talked to Uncle Jim once or twice – like him and my father, for some reason I am not that good at picking up the phone or writing a note to keep in touch with family, there is always tomorrow. He has also called and talked to my stepmother a few times. Each year she sends a Christmas card to Suitland.
After I compiled the family information into the database I made note in my to-do list to write to Uncle Jim. Then I started work on the website and said after it is finished I will write him. Then I was able to visit Ireland and I said I would do it when I got back. Then I got a contract and had to abruptly leave for Louisiana and said I would write over Christmas.
On the day after Christmas we had a family gathering at my Stepmother’s house. Over dinner she asked if I had heard anything from Uncle Jim. I said no and she said that she had not heard from him in a couple of years – which was not that unusual – but that this year her Christmas card had been returned and she was concerned.
That night I searched the Social Security Death Index. My Uncle Jim had passed away in October of 2003 and my cousin James P. had died a few months earlier in August of 2003. Michael had not called. No one had called to let us know. I searched the online phone book but could not find a listing for Michael. Either he has an unlisted number or has moved out of that area.
I recently read The Undertaking, a book of essays by Irish American Poet and Undertaker Thomas Lynch. In it he talks about how funerals are unimportant to the guest of honor –who is after all dead – but very important to the living. Seeing with your own eyes that someone is dead brings closure. I recently scanned a photo of my uncle as a young man in uniform. For months now I have been thinking about writing him a letter on all the family history that I have been compiling and on my visit to Ireland and the discussions there about his long ago visit. In my mind he was alive, two years after he had died. And without being at the wake, without reading the obituary, without seeing the tombstone, it is hard for me to register that he too is gone.
My father’s brother and his son Michael traveled to Lawrence 8 years ago this month for my father’s funeral. Uncle Jim’s oldest son James P. had always been sickly and could not make the trip.
My uncle was 2 years older than my father. He had enlisted in the Army during World War II and over his career he had advanced to the rank of full bird Colonel. He had taught at the war college in Maryland and worked at the Pentagon. He did two tours of duty on the General’s staff in Vietnam. For as long as I could remember, he had lived in Suitland, Maryland.
Every once in a while, until her death in 1976, he would return home to visit his mother. I remember one time him bringing James P. along. I was a young boy and James P. was seven years older than I. It was great fun to have an older cousin around if only for a few days.
While home, my uncle would help out around my grandmother’s apartment. One of my clearest memories was of him standing in the pantry in a bright white sleeveless undershirt painting my grandmother’s old sink with white enamel paint.
I vaguely recall, my father and I once visiting his house in Suitland – but maybe that is just in my mind.
Even when I too lived in Maryland, I never visited him. I did visit my mother’s sister and her husband who lived in Arlington, VA but my Uncle Jim was more of a mystery. The soldier who appeared from time to time and then was out of touch for a few years.
When he was passed over for General, he retired from the Army. My mother’s sister said that there was a small article in the Washington Post about his retirement so he must have been well known in at least some quarters. His wife, aunt Peg who was 5 years older than him, passed away in 1995. I don’t think that retirement fit him well and the loss of his wife of some 45 years was another blow. I think out of loneliness he began calling my father more frequently. I think they became closer during this time.
Then, when my father’s colon cancer returned, they talked even more often.
The one pleasant outcome of my father’s passing was the opportunity for my sisters, my stepmother and I to reconnect with Uncle Jim and to meet his son Michael. Standing in the receiving line at the wake, sitting in the living room at my dad’s house and spending an afternoon with him at my house, we had an opportunity to talk about many things: my career, his career, politics, government, world affairs. After the loss of a father a reconnection with his brother was a small but important comfort.
Since dad’s death, I have talked to Uncle Jim once or twice – like him and my father, for some reason I am not that good at picking up the phone or writing a note to keep in touch with family, there is always tomorrow. He has also called and talked to my stepmother a few times. Each year she sends a Christmas card to Suitland.
After I compiled the family information into the database I made note in my to-do list to write to Uncle Jim. Then I started work on the website and said after it is finished I will write him. Then I was able to visit Ireland and I said I would do it when I got back. Then I got a contract and had to abruptly leave for Louisiana and said I would write over Christmas.
On the day after Christmas we had a family gathering at my Stepmother’s house. Over dinner she asked if I had heard anything from Uncle Jim. I said no and she said that she had not heard from him in a couple of years – which was not that unusual – but that this year her Christmas card had been returned and she was concerned.
That night I searched the Social Security Death Index. My Uncle Jim had passed away in October of 2003 and my cousin James P. had died a few months earlier in August of 2003. Michael had not called. No one had called to let us know. I searched the online phone book but could not find a listing for Michael. Either he has an unlisted number or has moved out of that area.
I recently read The Undertaking, a book of essays by Irish American Poet and Undertaker Thomas Lynch. In it he talks about how funerals are unimportant to the guest of honor –who is after all dead – but very important to the living. Seeing with your own eyes that someone is dead brings closure. I recently scanned a photo of my uncle as a young man in uniform. For months now I have been thinking about writing him a letter on all the family history that I have been compiling and on my visit to Ireland and the discussions there about his long ago visit. In my mind he was alive, two years after he had died. And without being at the wake, without reading the obituary, without seeing the tombstone, it is hard for me to register that he too is gone.
posted by J Corlss at
8:59 PM
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