Damn! I Love My Uncle MAGA

I love my uncle.  I really do.  I keep telling myself.  I have to keep telling myself that I love my uncle.  I don’t disagree with myself.  I have nothing but love and respect for my uncle.  Oddly enough, he’s not even my uncle.  He is my wife’s uncle.  He and my aunt wont have that though.  They treat me like a nephew.  Honestly, they treat my like a son.  I try to defer to my wife and allow the decisions regarding their family functions to go through her, and to just be supportive.  They end up channeling them through me, and it is only slightly more endearing than it is uncomfortable.  I love my aunt too, but today this will focus on my uncle.  And I love him.  If there were an uncle store, I would pick him.  

My aunt and uncle have had a very bad year.  They had two sons who started the year 47 and 44 years of age.  The sons are both married to wonderful women, and each has a young daughter.  The younger son and his wife have a daughter who is 3 years old this Summer, and the older son and his wife have a daughter who is 4.  The older child was born, and adopted at birth just days before the younger son got married.  The older son was the best man in his younger brother’s wedding, held on a private island off of South Carolina.  The baby grandchild attended with her parents, all of a week old or so, in a beautiful little gown.  She slept through the ceremony in her mother’s arms.

The wedding was interesting.  The private island has a private club, and the wedding colors were the club colors.  (If you’re old enough, picture a wedding with Thurston Howell III, and his blue blazer). The best man wore his blue blazer and khakis…and tennis shoes.  My aunt was mortified.  The rest of us loved it.  My cousin (my wife’s cousin) is really more of a brother.  He calls me his brother.  It is especially poignant because the younger cousin, the groom, took his own life at the beginning of this year.  He had been married not quite 4 years, and had a daughter not quite 3.  

He was a wonderful person.  He was very much like his father.  Both presidents of their fraternities.  Extremely likable fellows.  The son, however, has always struggled with depression.  I didn’t know until I was notified of his death.  My wife never knew.  Only his brother, his parents, and his wife knew.  Every day this year, I have awoken with a thought about how to save him.  I have had to remind myself every day this year that death can’t be undone.  I was notified by my wife’s cousin, his brother, my wife’s cousin, my cousin…my brother.  I was driving and saw his name pop up, so I answered it.  When he gave me the news, my brain could not make sense of it.  I couldn’t even make sense of the road I was driving on.  I had to pull over, although I was in a bit of a hurry to meet a childhood friend that I had not seen in almost 40 years.  

I pulled over and talked to him.  Listened to him.  It was all very matter of fact, and then I burst out crying in a wail.  Then he started crying.  I expressed my sorrow.  He apologized.  Nothing made any sense at that moment.  

My wife’s cousin, my cousin, my brother is just enough younger than me to be a millennial.  For my wife and me, a smart phone is something to use to text, talk, and maybe take a few pictures.  For this guy, the smart phone does things that I don’t even know about yet.  And most significantly for me, talking means video chatting.  He likes to video chat on a daily basis.  I’m good with a text.  I am ramping up to the daily video chat thing.  Things you do for your little brother.

He and his wife, and their 4 year old live in Minneapolis Minnesota.  His wife was born and raised there.  Some of you may recall when I said that a lawyer said that “Black Lives Matter” was started by a Marxist, and I said, you know, Marx was a lawyer.  Well, that’s her dad.  She’s from a rather wealthy family also.  (Thankfully, their politics are not like their fathers’). They have decided to raise their daughter, and soon a second, in a racially diverse area of Minneapolis.  In fact, my wife’s cousin, my cousin, my brother and I were on the phone when news came on about the protests of George Floyd’s death.  The intersection where the memorial was eventually built is about a mile and a half from their house.  I had to talk him out of going down to the protest.  I told him that he was in the dad category, and their family had lost enough dads to young daughters that year.    Our quota was filled.  His wife’s parents own cabins a few hours north of Minneapolis, so she and the daughter went there, while he stayed home.  I remember that there was rain in the forecast, and I told him that the rain should thin the crowd a bit.  I figured that the pause would be enough to cool everyone off, and what seemed like it might be an immediate threat would dissipate.  By now, the whole world knows that is not exactly how it happened.  He was fine.  His wife and child were fine.  But the nation wasn’t fine.

But, this isn’t about him.  This is about my uncle.  And I love my uncle.  I honestly do.  My wife and I went to see my…well, her aunt and uncle…just this past weekend.  We packed our two dogs and went to their place, about 3 hours away.  We had not seen them since the funeral, and the funeral was just about a month and a half before the pandemic put everyone into their respective social distancing routines, so, we haven’t really seen anybody…except the mailman, a few contractors doing some endless remodeling, and grocery and delivery guys.  We have not been testing our luck with this virus thing.  

So, when we go to see my aunt and uncle, we get split off right away.  Every time.  Amy goes off with her aunt, and her uncle sits down with me and starts talking politics.  Really, it is more lecturing about politics.  I know I love this man because he tells me things like “George Floyd was resisting arrest…”, and “I got myself a Blue Lives Matter hat and wear it around my neighborhood…and I get thumbs up…”, and stuff like that.  When I type the things he says, it raises my blood pressure, but when I am with him, I refuse to argue with him.  He is a really good, really decent, really loving man.  I just refuse to tell him that he’s all wrong, and his politics are shit.  (Ted Cruz came to speak at their church.  Yikes!)

Whenever we part, he always says to me, “I am glad you and (the oldest son) have become so close.  That’s really good for him.”  Now, he has said this to me before, and this seemed like a repetition.  But, my brilliant, and emotionally plugged in wife told me, he’s telling you that he is grateful that you can be a brother for him since he lost his younger brother.  I have no problem loving my wife’s cousins and their spouses.  They’re all fantastic people, and we have an easy time all the time.  Really, the same goes for her aunt and uncle.  What I can’t get my head around is that Uncle’s politics are positively obnoxious.  You’d never believe it if I told you what a wonderful man this man is, and I don’t blame you one bit.  When I spend time with them, his politics absolutely disappear…until he reminds me again.  I can’t even tell him how I feel, and it is all because I love that man.  I honestly do.