I have few pictures of him

My uncle has been ailing for a month. My mother or father would update the family group chat with pictures of him in bed, eyes closed. We were told one condition or another compounding, including walking pneumonia, though he doesn't seem capable of doing much walking. Amber asks if she has met him. This is not an unfounded question. Ten years in, I can name a few family members with whom she has never had cause to encounter. George is not among these, though the only interaction I can say for sure is, "He came to our wedding. He gave me a silver tie pin because I didn't have one." I show her a picture of him in his hospital bed, but he looks unlike himself there. She might not recognize him even if she met him in the bloom of health.

George and I are not that close. I am not close with many in my family, nor am I explicitly distant. Still, one does not want family suffering, particularly when he is far from alone from suffering with him in the hospital. He falls into that category of my family that has always seemed old to me, even having clear memories of him 35 years ago. He couldn't then have been much older than I am now. I cannot imagine anyone yet remembering me as perpetually old.

At first, it is a voiceless whisper in phone calls that he will not be recovering, then a murmur. Now, on Thanksgiving Day, it is overtly stated that he will not live much longer. His immediate family will spend their holiday at his bedside, waiting for the inevitable. The nurses tried to keep them away owing to Covid restrictions, then gave up and allowed them in. That alone says volumes.

I don't know when last I saw him, but it would indeed have been the last time. I will not be sobbing at his deathbed. I may have last seen him at my aunt's funeral, which is perhaps when my family gathers now in the absence of weddings.

Perhaps callously, I think of when his funeral will most likely be and hope for his continued survival because I have plans this weekend and the second weekend of December. I'm aware that this is heartless, but I have accepted the unlikelihood of his miraculous recovery, leaving that he will need a funeral soon and that my attendance will be suggested. I care for him and would want to be there, but I also feel that his spirit would not be scanning the crowd at his memorial service for my face. I don't know that I would necessarily be missed at all beyond someone asking my mother where her children are or possibly who.

This will be one of the longest nights my aunt Jane will ever face, and I am considering my calendar. She had not lived without him for half a century or, I assume, ever alone. When he went into the hospital for the first time, she met this absence by walking her house like a ghost, cleaning without aim beyond doing something. Her home did not per se need the effort, but her heart did. I don't know what she will do once he passes. The thought of the emptiness of her home after the funeral sends a hollow chill up my spine. The idea of such a loss late in life must be crippling.

My nephew Aydan sees me scribbling this and asks what I am writing. I give a vague answer because the truth of my subject is too much of a downer for the interregnum between Thanksgiving meal proper and pie.

"I'm always writing," I say, not an untruth. "You know, I do have books out, several but not all of which you should read."

"I don't read books," he said bluntly and, off my look of baffled horror, adds that his teacher keeps assigning boring books for reports, so he summarizes internet synopses or watching movies. He then asks whose name is on the cover of the notebook I am using.

I explain that I liberated the barely used notebooks from my facility when it closed and that this boy was not the brightest star in the heavens, so only two pages were ever used.

"You have students?" he asks.

"Yes, I teach adjudicated minors -- juvenile delinquents. They used to be kids who got in fights or were caught with drugs. Now, they are sometimes murders."

"Wow. I had no idea. I knew you wrote books."

I narrow my eyes. How could my nephew not know that? Then I realize that my knowledge of him extends to his approximate age and that he liked the Goat Game years ago. The rest is emotional, how I feel about him, that we joke about him being my son.

I don't know if George had this with me. We have the tie tack, which I cherish now. For years, I could not find it, but it was in the jacket pocket of my suit from the wedding. I put it in a jewelry box to be assured I would not lose it again, but I wear ties so infrequently that I'm not sure when I would miss it as anything other than a memento. Amber says I seem off when we return home that night, though I brush this off as a side effect of an allergy pill I had to take. This continues into the next day. When she returns from work, she notes that I had forgotten to prepare the stuffing for our dinner party the following day. I do not snap at her, but I think snappish thoughts. I begin to follow the bagged directions and, taking note of my reactions, say, "I think I am profoundly sad that my uncle is dying."

Amber asks, "Do you want to -- I don't know -- go see him?"

I give her a confused look. "No. That would do no one any good. I would not have a place there."

We continue our preparations for our part, Amber readying the turkey, me being irritated that I lack an ingredient for my curry cauliflower. We got to bed without doing anything more than acknowledging that impending deaths give me a case of the morbs.

When I wake the following morning, it is to a text from my mother asserting that Uncle George has passed and, per his wishes, there will be no service. Seeing the announcement of his death affects me much less than knowing it was coming.

Amber and I -- though mostly Amber as this is the only time in the year where she gets a chance to cook in the kitchen that has long since become my domain -- go through the tens of final acts of cookery that precede our party. I do not feel mournful, though I am occasionally made aware again of the loss via buzzing messages to my family's group text -- most of which are vaccine skepticism.

Sarah M. comes and asks what's new.

I say breezily, "My uncle died this morning. Other than that, not much."

"I am so sorry."

I shrug, the loss small for me. When Kristina and Daniel join us, I do not repeat this interaction. (Joana, also known here as Josie, might have come but for a child putting her in preventative quarantine.)

It's a lovely evening among friends, mocking bad movies and overeating good food. I choose to believe George would have liked it, but I am incapable of telling you much more than that about him.

last watched: Inside Job
reading: Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas