Usually I’m good for comic relief, but this time I’d like to share a shortened version of remarks I made at my Uncle Bud’s funeral last week. He was 86 and had lived a long and happy life. He was immensely proud that Rob and I ran an art gallery, which meant a lot to me. He was impressed by anyone who, like him, owned and managed a business. Not that he knew anything about art, other than duck decoys, but he knew a lot about setting goals and integrity and responsibility. I thought you should meet him.
In the way he lived his life, my Uncle Bud taught me all I know about possibility. And life to me is about possibility, what’s around the corner.
I was 7, almost 8, in 1973 when my mom’s brother flew his family from Des Moines, Iowa to visit us in Durham, NC. Literally. Flew with his own hands and my Aunt Sue’s help. In a tiny plane, a Piper Comanche 250.
It started as a tiny dot. Mom and Dad and I shaded our eyes against the sun and watched it grow to a larger and larger dot. Finally, you could hear it. Then it actually took the shape of a plane. Standing on the tarmac, watching it materialize out of thin air, land and then taxi over was the most exciting and exotic thing in my life at the time and might still rank in the top 2 or 3. The vastness of the world had come to me, and Uncle Bud made it happen
It’s funny; the only photos I have of the arrival are of me and my Aunt Sue, she who was the most grounded of all of us, yet a willing and vital participant in all adventures. In one, I am standing on the wing. My Aunt Sue is standing on the ground next to the wing, probably to cushion my expected fall, and her head reaches over the roof. This was a tiny plane. In the other, I am in the co-pilot’s seat. It looks just like I am sitting in a car. Red leather seats, a steering wheel, windows, sun visors. The plane is red, white, and blue. I have on a blue and white coat and red pants. We matched, in more ways than one. I have such a grin on my face. I had only seen planes like that in movies. My family had stepped out of a movie.
It was winter. February. And the sky was that blue you only get in the winter. Nothing around other than another plane, this one a little larger, maybe a six seater. I had not experienced such vastness before. Such possibility.
Something connected that day and forged as strong a bond as there is in this world. I feel honored to share the same blood as my Uncle Bud. As I have grown older, I see that he, like all people, was full of flaws. But nothing ever diminished my love for him. It is fierce and unshakable and full of admiration. Maybe I didn’t know him that well, but I knew enough. Maybe it’s easiest to love from a distance, the fierceness and crystal clarity not dulled by daily existence. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Everyone needs someone to mythologize, and Uncle Bud was my myth.
I have long told stories of his exploits and basked in the reflected glory. Stories involving planes and grizzly bears and skiing and diving. Wow. What a ride to even know him, much less be his niece. I will miss him, but I will never forget him. It would be impossible.
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