uncle belly fire It's been 10 years since I've lost a family member. And honestly, looking down at him in that bed, his clutching, shaky hands in mine, I knew it would be soon. I knew looking into his wide, frightened blue eyes that it would be the last time. Oh, the very last. And I was afraid. It's easy being here and being removed from it - only experiencing the loss through phone calls and emails. But in one more day I'll drive to him. See him lying heavily and stiffly in a box. Not my uncle. No blue eyes, no shaky fingers...missing his thumb. The non-thumb he'd shake at us kids jokingly year upon year with heavy laughter. And I wonder, who will be there to shove an elbow in my ribs and tell a joke? Who will make light of our grief? 020918 ... epitome of incomprehensibility raze's uncle_brian blathe brought back an uncle memory of mine (dialogue imperfectly reconstructed): I'm about twelve years old. I'm standing with Uncle Lazy Inventor in the yard of Ragtag Private Christian School, near the tree. Uncle LI has come to pick up my brother and me from RPCS. We're waiting for the said brother, so to while away the time I try to impress him with the new word I learned: eschatology. Adjective: eschatological. Having to do with the end of the world. That sounds like scatology or scatological, he says. Do you know what THAT means? He has to convince me that it means "having to do with poop". I'm not easily persuaded that there's a fancy academic word for that. Once I'm persuaded, I'm amused. I'm easily amused. "But why does it sound so much like eschatological?" I ask. "Well," he says, "they both have to do with the ends of things: the digestive tract, the world." 170702 what's it to you? who go blather from