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Life lessons not learned
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Published: April 29, 2009
When I was young I had an aunt who lived in a small town in Kentucky. I would visit her every summer.
Her husband would travel through the week selling shoes wholesale, and she was left home to run the business and take care of the family.
They owned the shoe store in town with her other brother, my Uncle Norman.
Uncle Norman was well known throughout town as a character.
He walked with a limp, and he couldn't speak clearly, because he had some kind of fever when he was a young man.
He lived in the back of the store, in a small room, and my aunt would take care of him.
She cooked all his meals, cleaned all his clothes, and made sure he was doing fine.
Uncle Norman helped run the store, which really meant he would walk around, shake shoeboxes, and yell about everything.
He scared me as a young child, and annoyed me as a teenager.
Uncle Norman loved to corner you, and begin a tale you could only half understand.
He would also tell the stories to the customers that shopped there, and only in a small town would they take the time to try to listen.
Somewhere in the conversation, he would pull out a crinkled letter, wave it around, and say it was from some world leader, like Anwar Sadat, or a senator. Uncle Norman would say he had sent them shoes, made them "Kentucky Colonels" (some honor from the state) and they knew who he was.
I thought he was crazy, and even though he would try to tell me stories about my father and his life in Poland, I was way too busy to hear it.
He would try to explain that he had saved many people from the Nazis, and helped them escape Poland.
I didn't have time to try to figure out exactly what he was saying, and maybe I was a bit embarrassed by him.
He knew I loved to write, and for years he would try to explain that my grandfather was an author who had written several books in Poland, but I would only half listen, and then I would shake my head like I understood what he said, but I didn't, and I would walk away.
When he died, letters started coming from senators and world leaders, expressing their sympathy in hearing of Uncle Norman's passing.
The whole town came to his memorial service, and when they cleaned out the room in the back of the store, they found the books my grandfather had written (they were the original handwritten manuscripts).
I never knew my grandfather, he died in Poland along with his wife, and their four children were sent to live in America with relatives. That's all my father told me.
I was in college by the time my uncle died, and began to regret that I would never know who he really was.
He was the keeper of the family history.
He was way more than the crazy uncle I thought he was, and what he knew I would never know. It was lost forever.
A life lesson I thought I had learned.
My husband has an uncle, Harry, who is 98 years old. Until six months ago he lived on his own in Orlando, although he had some help from neighbors and old military buddies.
Until two years ago he ran six miles every day, and took many supplements and vitamins.
He would watch TV and order things like the Ab-Lounger, or some stair stepper. He was a health nut, and a complete character.
Since I first met my husband, 25 years ago, we would visit with Harry and his wife, Anne, a few times a year.
She was fiery, but extremely kind. They had been together forever, but never had kids, and they loved mine.
My oldest would run around her back yard, and play with the gnomes she had placed all over her garden. Uncle Harry would always tell war stories, over and over again.
He had fought in World War II and was shot twice. He was in some battle in Italy, and would tell the stories again and again.
How he had to sleep on frozen mud, and the soldiers under him would cry, but as the leader he couldn't complain and he couldn't cry, even though he wanted to.
I was usually impatient, chasing kids and worrying about what I had to do later. I loved them, but it always seemed I had things to do, and rushed the visits, and never really listened to the stories.
Anne died a few years ago, and Harry insisted on staying in house alone.
Then that time came.
He needed to go to a nursing home. He had suffered a stroke and was hard to understand, and was not able to take care of himself.
During that past year, when he called, I of course would rush off the phone, because it was uncomfortable to talk to him. I couldn't understand what he was saying.
It's been hard for him in the nursing home, and his health has declined since arriving.
Part is the quality of care, which is another story, and part is his will to go on.
When we visit, he tries to say things, but now we can't understand him at all.
He'll smile when he sees us. He'll point to pictures of himself in uniform, and photos of Anne, and then he'll cry.
He tries to tell stories, but now it's my husband who tells them to him. He patiently kneels next to him reciting the stories back.
My husband will tell him the story of sleeping on the frozen mud, and thanks him for serving his country and his family so well. He tells him how he learned to be a good husband and a good man from Harry's example.
We tell him we love him.
On this last visit, as I looked at him lying so fragile and gaunt in bed, I tried so hard to hear what he saying. I was kind of hoping for one more war story, but what I got was the realization that I hadn't learned from my past. I again lost the chance to hear stories of a life I shared.
As we left to come back to Concord, I did understand the last thing he said to us. "I love you", and he blew me a kiss with his shaky hand.
We went by his house, which is for sale, for one last look. We walked around back to look in the windows.
I saw one gnome left sitting next to a dead flowerbed. I made my husband take it with us (cement stand and all). I sat it between two trees out the back of my house, by my vegetable garden.
I go to the window and stare at it.
It will be my reminder, of yet another chance lost at the same life lesson.
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