Let me tell you about Joe.
It's amazing how stories fold and unfold and take on light and color as we recall - years pass - our memories may press the past into broken images that are a kaleidoscope of real, recalled and remembered and it is among these colored pieces that I find myself today - September 15, 2014 - when this wonderful man took his last human breath - and journeyed on.
Joe - Uncle Joe - was my great uncle. The youngest of a pack of children - the Byers kids from Lovington, New Mexico. This family - this was an amazing family with Big Dad and Meme in the Big House - think the early 1900s in the windswept, dusty world of Lea County, New Mexico. Uncle Joe was the youngest brother of my dear Nana.
As far as I can remember - and even after - he was our hero. No need to brush on the cobwebs of the story of the Simpson kids - what a mess we were... but Joe - he saw amazing potential, really, he lived a potential that he projected out to everyone he met.
The stories - gosh - as I write I remember more and more....
I can't tell you Joe's story. I can tell you snippets of my life weaving in with his. I can tell you about his taking my three brothers camping - or popcorn parties with carbonated flavored water and a classic movie in his living-room. Hours, and hours, and hours combing through his warehouse of treasures - and his key jar... I thought it was amazingly magical.
Uncle Joe ate lunch with Nana and Papaw as long as I can remember. I remember one time Nana asked me to dial up Joe for lunch. I dialed - in my 12 year old sophistication - and a woman answered. ... I looked at Nana. Nana looked at me. She walked over to the speaker phone on the bar in the kitchen and spoke into the phone... "Is Joe there??" The woman responded, "I'm sorry, you have the wrong number..." Nana and I were bent over with hysterical laughter.
You see... Joe was a single man all of his life. Married to his family, his work, his belief in God - I never knew the story - only stories that my Nana perceived... we joked with my uncle when he finally came for lunch that day...
I remember visiting my grandparents and Uncle Joe dancing with me on his shoes - and he'd humm and sing... "La, la, dah dah dum... la, la lah dum...." I would giggle - 8 years old and amazed at how wonderful he was. Years and years later - my daughter was 4 or 5 and my great uncle danced with Meredith's feet on his own. Typing that now makes me pause - my throat heavy with remembering...
The last years of my marriage to my children's father - separated and just feeling alone and judged by so many - I was struck one Valentine's Day to send my uncle a Valentine's Day gift... it was a stuffed animal with a card...
A few weeks later I got a card that read, "Dear Niece - I haven't received a Valentine's Greeting in years... Thank you..."
*smile...
Years later - and this is the story that I tie so clearly to my Uncle Joe... our threads clearly tied to each other in an exchange through letters...
I read the book "The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw. It moved me - every piece of me and it reminded me of a conversation with my grandmother...
"We never talk about the war with Joe," Nana warned me carefully. "Why," I asked. "Because many years ago something awful happened to him, and he told us to never talk about it again."
To that Simone in me - and we all know ... (how did my family put up with me?!!) ... I needed to know. After learning more about this time period and the stories... I needed to know.
So I pulled out my word processor (yeah, sure - laugh!!) and I wrote a very important letter...
Dear Uncle Joe... [words, words, words, words] ... Tell me your story. Love your niece, ... Me.
A few weeks later I received a very thin envelope with the following theme:
"Why?"
I sat on that question a few days. Why. I won't go into what I wrote him - but I poured out my real heart - my real reasons - ... and I didn't hear a thing - frankly, I was worried my Nana would find out I asked and it was never good to upset the world of Nana.
Then... a few months later I got a padded envelope in the mail.
The cover page has a hand-written note - simply: "You asked for it."
His story was one of the most touching and real accounts of World War II I have ever read. Likely it touched me closely because he was my uncle - but I read it with tears, laughter and found myself nodding ... yes.
This - this amazing man - this was my uncle.
Joe died today. My oldest brother Jimi got to visit with him before he passed - and Jimi called me as I walked through a park here in Montana to tell me that Joe cracked a few jokes a few hours before he took his last breath...
I don't claim to know the minds of any life lived - I think my uncle would be proud of my spreading my wings and just trying - and believing ... and even my constant need to ask why.
I'm better for his living - and I'm living better because he was here on this earth.
I truly pray I can live one-tenth of his fantastic-ness.
Love to all of you. (really - and really)
- Simone
It's amazing how stories fold and unfold and take on light and color as we recall - years pass - our memories may press the past into broken images that are a kaleidoscope of real, recalled and remembered and it is among these colored pieces that I find myself today - September 15, 2014 - when this wonderful man took his last human breath - and journeyed on.
Joe - Uncle Joe - was my great uncle. The youngest of a pack of children - the Byers kids from Lovington, New Mexico. This family - this was an amazing family with Big Dad and Meme in the Big House - think the early 1900s in the windswept, dusty world of Lea County, New Mexico. Uncle Joe was the youngest brother of my dear Nana.
As far as I can remember - and even after - he was our hero. No need to brush on the cobwebs of the story of the Simpson kids - what a mess we were... but Joe - he saw amazing potential, really, he lived a potential that he projected out to everyone he met.
The stories - gosh - as I write I remember more and more....
I can't tell you Joe's story. I can tell you snippets of my life weaving in with his. I can tell you about his taking my three brothers camping - or popcorn parties with carbonated flavored water and a classic movie in his living-room. Hours, and hours, and hours combing through his warehouse of treasures - and his key jar... I thought it was amazingly magical.
Uncle Joe ate lunch with Nana and Papaw as long as I can remember. I remember one time Nana asked me to dial up Joe for lunch. I dialed - in my 12 year old sophistication - and a woman answered. ... I looked at Nana. Nana looked at me. She walked over to the speaker phone on the bar in the kitchen and spoke into the phone... "Is Joe there??" The woman responded, "I'm sorry, you have the wrong number..." Nana and I were bent over with hysterical laughter.
You see... Joe was a single man all of his life. Married to his family, his work, his belief in God - I never knew the story - only stories that my Nana perceived... we joked with my uncle when he finally came for lunch that day...
I remember visiting my grandparents and Uncle Joe dancing with me on his shoes - and he'd humm and sing... "La, la, dah dah dum... la, la lah dum...." I would giggle - 8 years old and amazed at how wonderful he was. Years and years later - my daughter was 4 or 5 and my great uncle danced with Meredith's feet on his own. Typing that now makes me pause - my throat heavy with remembering...
The last years of my marriage to my children's father - separated and just feeling alone and judged by so many - I was struck one Valentine's Day to send my uncle a Valentine's Day gift... it was a stuffed animal with a card...
A few weeks later I got a card that read, "Dear Niece - I haven't received a Valentine's Greeting in years... Thank you..."
*smile...
Years later - and this is the story that I tie so clearly to my Uncle Joe... our threads clearly tied to each other in an exchange through letters...
I read the book "The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw. It moved me - every piece of me and it reminded me of a conversation with my grandmother...
"We never talk about the war with Joe," Nana warned me carefully. "Why," I asked. "Because many years ago something awful happened to him, and he told us to never talk about it again."
To that Simone in me - and we all know ... (how did my family put up with me?!!) ... I needed to know. After learning more about this time period and the stories... I needed to know.
So I pulled out my word processor (yeah, sure - laugh!!) and I wrote a very important letter...
Dear Uncle Joe... [words, words, words, words] ... Tell me your story. Love your niece, ... Me.
A few weeks later I received a very thin envelope with the following theme:
"Why?"
I sat on that question a few days. Why. I won't go into what I wrote him - but I poured out my real heart - my real reasons - ... and I didn't hear a thing - frankly, I was worried my Nana would find out I asked and it was never good to upset the world of Nana.
Then... a few months later I got a padded envelope in the mail.
The cover page has a hand-written note - simply: "You asked for it."
His story was one of the most touching and real accounts of World War II I have ever read. Likely it touched me closely because he was my uncle - but I read it with tears, laughter and found myself nodding ... yes.
This - this amazing man - this was my uncle.
Joe died today. My oldest brother Jimi got to visit with him before he passed - and Jimi called me as I walked through a park here in Montana to tell me that Joe cracked a few jokes a few hours before he took his last breath...
I don't claim to know the minds of any life lived - I think my uncle would be proud of my spreading my wings and just trying - and believing ... and even my constant need to ask why.
I'm better for his living - and I'm living better because he was here on this earth.
I truly pray I can live one-tenth of his fantastic-ness.
Love to all of you. (really - and really)
- Simone
