Uncle Bernie

    When you think back to your childhood what are your clearest memories? Me, I remember Glenn Kelly having the rock fall on his finger at the brook and it almost being severed. Crossing to the sandbar between my Dad and Charlie to dig clams that Mom and Aunt Charlotte would cook on the beach on an old Coleman stove. Robbie Carr jabbing my leg with his pencil and the lead breaking off inside...it's still there btw.

  Today the ones that are front and center in my mind are the summers spent in P.E.I. where my Uncle Bernie lived. It was my first glimpse of independence. He would go to work every day and we, being whoever else happened to be there that week, would watch Days of Our Lives and walk to the mall. At lunch, he would come home and drive us to the beach for the afternoon. Joining us after work for a swim. He always dove right in. Enjoying the coolness of the ocean while we would tentatively put our toes in.

  Bernie never married or had children but he created a life that was the envy of many. If he enjoyed something he did it. He was a Big Brother for years. Umpired baseball games almost every evening. Made friends from all walks of life. He traveled within Canada especially the backroads. All the time singing. Made up songs or old, old, old ones. And they were all bad, all unbelievable and all very funny.

  Just last week John and I took the kids for an ice cream cone and a drive. We passed a farmers field where the manure had just been spread. As I opened my mouth to tell them how this was Bernie's favorite thing to do to see who wouldn't be able to eat because of the smell, both boys said: "I know Mom this is what Uncle Bernie did to you as a kid.". I guess I've told them a time or two.

  I remember when Riley was born. We asked Bernie to be his Godfather and without hesitation, he said: "I would be honored." Those words, just about the only ones in the phone call, stayed with me. He really was honored. You could hear it in his voice. Like him, we have lived most of our adult lives away from family and are overjoyed when we are thought of for family events.

  Uncle Bernie died yesterday. And I told Mom it was hard to be sad for him because he lived his life to the fullest until he couldn't. The fact that a heart attack several years ago changed his quality of life in an instant was the real sadness for him. Not being able to do what he wanted, when he wanted, was certainly not the way he wanted to live his life. And certainly not the way I wanted him to.

  Every time I see cold cuts in brown paper, hear the Carter Family or drive past a horse track (poor Donna still has scars and a little residual anger from a Summerside racetrack incident) I will smile. The smell of cow manure will make me laugh. Potatoes blossoming in the fields and seeing a purple house will bring him to mind. I will laugh about being able to write cheques as long as there are some in the book. 

  You may be gone Bernie but you will never be forgotten.

  Ang