remembering my uncle -funeral included
So yesterday would�ve been my uncle�s 69th birthday. My aunt had a little prayer session at her house to commemorate what should�ve been a happy occasion had he bee alive.
I don�t know if I�ve ever mentioned it before, but my uncle died last year. the circumstances of his death were very����.horrible to say the least.
Actually, he killed himself. More specifically, hanged himself.
The traumatic episode in question happened on April 5th, 2008. I�m still not over it. I mean how can you ever get over something like this?
I feel this dull pain in my chest. Like a resigned kind of unhappiness.
He could�ve lived for years if he hadn�t done away with himself. But the question is, would his quality of life gotten any better?
He had Parkinson�s and from an active businessman, father and grandfather, he became a feeble sickly old man.
The thing is, we (the family) never saw him as a sickly old man, we still saw him as the backbone of our family, the one who was a fountain of information when we were our most needy and thirsty for guidance.
I still carry around a feeling of guilt inside me from hid death. I was supposed to be there that afternoon and I opted to stay in my apartment and study. Then my mom called telling me he died, but she didn�t tell me how he died.
It was my cousin; her daughter that told me the gruesome details.
He had someone got himself down the back stairs leading to the garage. I don�t know where he got the strength from, he could barely move on his own properly by this point.
But that afternoon, he dragged himself down the stairs and got a roll of electrical wire, cut a piece, dragged a bench close to the staircase which was enclosed in burglar proofing. He died the noose and well������..hung himself. His mentally challenged older son found him blue and hanging from the burglar proofing. He called for his sister to come and they both untied him.
I feel so guilty, so horrible. The pain is rushing back now.
I remember what I did the night I heard he died. I called up a close friend of mine who just so happened to deal weed and we smoked a shitload of purple haze. I just needed some kinda release.
I had to take a taxi home the next morning, and as soon as I got out of the taxi, I heard someone saying, � yea didn�t you hear John Ishmael poisoned himself!�
I glanced at the speaker in barely restrained fury. It was some idiot named Troy from my neighbourhood. His wife had been gruesomely murdered a couple years back. I felt sorry for him but that didn�t mean that he had to be intruding upon my grief in such a fucked up, rude manner!!
If looks could�ve killed he would�ve imploded on the spot, brain matter, blood and guts flying everywhere. As it was I just reminded myself that my uncle would never want me to embarrass myself in this way. Family pride always came high on his list of priorities. Troy though it seems, was sufficiently quailed by my ferocious look, so much so that he immediately shut his trap!!
I got home and was bombarded by a crowd of mourners. I could�ve screamed when I saw him lying there in that box. I�ll never really think of what he was lying in as a coffin. I mean it was, but it just seemed so disgustingly crude to me.
My family was just gathered around his box, sobbing. Some of them loud, some of them the tears just streaming down their faces silently. I stood like a statue just staring at his face, calm in repose, eternal sleep
We went to the cemetery afterwards and stayed till the last shovel of dirt was placed on his grave. That was a terrible moment. Knowing that my uncle once full of life and love was lying under that mound of dirt, away from the sunlight, away from all life and laughter.
Last night I was watching a rerun of Gray�s Anatomy. It was the episode where they had to unplug George�s father after his cancer surgery had caused him to sink into a coma and induce massive organ failure.
When George�s dad was lying there not moving in his hospital bed an all his family surrounded him, I got a vivid flashback of my uncle�s face when he was in that box.
I started to cry as I watched George�s dad vitals flatline remembering my uncle just laying there.
(sigh)
I hate to remember sometimes.