In Other Words

The Long Drop

My uncle died a few days ago. I’m still trying to decide what I feel about it. I didn’t know the man all that well, met him only a few dozen times, so emotionally it hasn’t done that much for me, except of course that the family is affected and that effects me. It was my mother’s youngest brother (she is the oldest of four).

He was also a drug addict with AIDS, that had wasted away to near nothing and was no longer completely ‘with it’. The last time my mother came back from visiting Europe she even said that she wasn’t sure if she would see him again. The last time I saw him (two or three years ago) he already looked like a skeleton and his appearance had not improved much since then.

My mother is much saddened, but even she said that it was probably for the best. He had drained the family over the many decades. Being incapable of looking after himself, he relied on them to help. They would give him what he would need and then he would betray them by stealing, cheating and screwing things up. He couldn’t help it, he just couldn’t kick the habit. He was a junkie and after 15 years of being a junkie, he was little else.

The person most affected is probably my sister. She ended up being the one that looked after him most. She was only a few years younger than him (my mother had her young) and they had had a really strong bond when they were younger.

When the rest of the family couldn’t take it anymore, my sister stepped in to help. She had been away a lot (she’s a traveler, in fact I think I got my travel bug from her) and had not been as completely destroyed by the concerns of the family. She was trying as best she could to help him (she helped him get a house, which he then lost again. Supported him as best she could, when she could). For her it was the end of a very long fight that she knew from the start she was destined to lose.

Again, it was probably for the best for her too, you can’t spend your entire life looking after somebody else, when they were too foolish to look after themselves.

So what do I feel? Distant, I guess, glad that people can concentrate on their own lives. Sorry that he ever started on that path in the first place. Not sorry he died, though. In my eyes he died a long time ago. He was far from complete for a very long time. I’m sorry he got hooked on the stuff, I’m sorry he couldn’t control his addiction, but I’m not sorry that his body gave out on him when he had single handedly utterly destroyed it. After a while he could no longer get off the road that led to his untimely death. It was too late, so I’m not sorry he passed on. At least he passed on in a bed in a hospital, not in a box in the cold, where he might only have been found two weeks later.

When you try to see how close to the edge of a cliff you dare walk you might fall off. I’m sorry he slipped, but I’m thankful his fall is finally over.

posted by Symbol @ 10.1.05