Joe

It is late; I've just showered. I haven't showered in several days, since I left Colorado Springs, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it was too much work; maybe I wasn't ready to wash the scent of my mother's house from my skin. But, like eating and drinking and sleeping, it is necessary to be clean. Now I just have to get to the sleeping part. Damn, I'm tired; if I am so tired, why can't I sleep?

I'm so glad and so grateful that I made it out to say goodbye and support (and be supported by) my family. I didn't know my cousins, Joe's kids, until this week. I was worried that it would be weird to have strangers in my mother's house, until I realized, at our first embrace, that there were no strangers among us. This was FAMILY; did I mention that I love my family? God, I do, and how much and for great reason. My family, my family, my family. Every word that comes from my mouth, my hands will be in honor and in praise of them. I love my family and my family loves me. Say it again, C., say it until no more breath passes through your lips. I love my family, I love them, I love them, I love them. Forever and always, my blood, my clan, my family.

I met Joe for the first time (that I recall) when I was six. My grandmother had passed. I was young and had few memories of my grandma; she seemed to be unhappy all of the time and I was glad because she was now with the God she so fervently adored. Even at six years of age, this I knew. But my Uncle Joe came out for the funeral and he was the funniest person I had ever met. He was 6 foot 3 and 220 pounds, even bigger than my big dad! I figured that older siblings were always bigger than the younger ones, just as my older brother and sister where bigger than me. That theory was shot down years later when I sprang up past my "big" sister who stopped growing at 5 foot 3. But that logic of bigness made sense at six.

Joe, when I was six, could roll his whole eye into the back of his head and "see" inside his brain. He got me to try it. I couldn't do it; I would roll back my eyes and only see darkness. He laughed and said keep trying. I tried for years after.

I saw Joe again when I was sixteen. My brother was graduating from the Academy, and Joe was coming to meet us all there. He got to the rented house while I was showering, and asked where I was. He settled into a lawn chair with my mom & dad & sister, and in a few minutes I came bounding downstairs, all 5 foot 10 of me, no longer six years old, now a young woman wearing a heavy metal t-shirt with wet hair wrapped in a towel. He turned around and his eyes bugged out of his head. This is Tommy's baby? Jesus! She's huge! I walked up to him and he stood up, still taller than me but considerably closer to my eye level than 10 years prior. "Hello, Stretch!", he said in a deep growly voice that sounded so much like my dad's. I don't think he ever called me by my first name after that. I was Stretch. I am still Stretch.

He sang karaoke at my sister's first wedding. I made him, my dad, and my brother sing "Duke of Earl". They fumbled the lyrics until Dad hit the end with an amazing and hilarious falsetto. Dad was one of the few who could make Joe laugh out loud; the rest of us, we are amateurs. We all cracked up. We've got it on tape; when I'm ready I want to watch it some time, and laugh and cry and swim in memories. I'll watch it when I can swim, and not drown.

He watched me & my sister try rollerblading in a park in Colorado. He called me "the mad stork", then all 5 foot 11 1/4" of me, arms and legs akimbo, trying to keep balanced and upright. I fell hard on my butt, and had an enormous bruise in that softest part of me. I dropped my pants and showed Joe. He laughed, and I laughed with him, even though it hurt like hell. I bet he told that story to any number of his friends, and laughed at his tall, lanky (at the time), uncoordinated niece. That's my niece, Stretch. Yeah, that her name! The mad stork! On rollerblades! I still have those blades, and maybe I'll go out and bruise my butt again. I'll laugh, and think of Joe.

So many stories. No one told a story like Joe. He had presence, a booming voice, his timing perfect, his punchlines spot-on. "The Black Commando". I can't tell that story because I can't do it justice. I'll bust up and fumble and never get it as right as Joe did. We've got that on tape, too. We'll watch it and cherish it and laugh through our tears. Think of something that makes you burst out laughing every single time you remember it, and you will know my Uncle Joe.

I thought that Joe was so funny, but I didn't realize for a long time that laughter hid so much pain. Losing his wife so early, and so tragically. Surviving when she didn't-it must have torn him up inside. Surviving his sister; losing touch with her children. Trying to be mother & father to three kids who had NO memory of a beautiful mother who smiled all of the time, and now only existed in pictures. The travesty of his marriage to his second wife. Limping heartbroken to a haven, my parents' home in Colorado, needing to be near his baby brother and Japanese sister, needing so much for someone who knew and loved him to take care of him while he rebuilt his life at the age of 68.

How can someone with so much pain be so funny? I know now why. Because you HAVE to laugh!!! YOU MUST!!! Laughter in not optional-it is NECESSARY! Laughter is SURVIVAL, as much so as eating and breathing and sleeping. If you cannot laugh, and laugh at yourself most of all, then please stay away from me and mine. We have no time for you, for time is precious to us. And we will laugh. We may cry and tear our clothes and howl through our grief, skipping showers and walking around in each other's clothes and trying hard not to puke up our food, but we will laugh at the same time. Go ahead, think us crazy. We are, and we are crazy and tired and grieving, and laughing, laughing, laughing. Laughing like the fools that we are, but we are in on the joke, my clan is, and we don't fight the joke, we just laugh. Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh.

I'm going to go to bed. I will think of my Uncle Joe, and how he is dancing with his beloved first wife, his true wife; they are reunited at last, and they are laughing. Tomorrow I will tell a funny story at work. Not "The Black Commando", because that is Joe's story to tell everyone in heaven, and they are laughing. As much as I know that I'm sitting at my laptop, smoking a cigarette (yes, sadly), feeling the cold wind leaking through my windows, I know that somewhere, right now, my Uncle Joe is making some else who is gone from our world laugh in theirs. But I will pick a funny story of my own to tell. (How about the time you drank too much tequila, C., and you woke up trapped under your bed? That's a good one.) Maybe that one, or another, or maybe something I hear on the radio or read in the paper. And we will laugh, and in doing so, my Uncle Joe will be honored. And he will be laughing.

And flipping me the bird, because that is Joe.

-C. ("Stretch")