My Uncle Joe

My Uncle Joe

My Uncle Joe was a wonderfully jovial man who never seemed to let life throw him a curve. He was always smiling, and he always had a kind word for even the most disagreeable person. “If you’re mean to anyone down here on earth, you’ll be looking up at them when you’re dead,” he’d say.

One day several years ago when I was in Ireland on a summer visit, we were talking all afternoon about nothing and everything. Joe was telling me about his time in the service during the war. He was stationed in France and was assigned to a unit in the Army that accompanied the chaplain on his rounds to minister to the soldiers who were sent back to the hospitals from the front lines. One night, he and the chaplain were in the ward going from bed to bed, praying and tending to some British and American soldiers who were gravely wounded. These men, he told me, were facing death’s door and knew it.

Joe’s eyes filled with tears as he told me about one young private that had both limbs blown off and, to make matters worse, was blinded in battle. He told me that he held his hand for a long time that night while they both cried. The young soldier died that night. Joe was with him to the end.

Joe told me that his one fear that haunted him always – even to this day – was that he would die without someone there with him. He fantasized about this nightmare that he would be old and alone and no one would be there with him. Death, he said, is an unwelcome guest, and another person with you would fool death and not give him the pleasure of taking you alone.

I will never forget this conversation with my Uncle Joe. His death, last year, occurred in a nursing home. He was with the people he loved – his children, his nieces and his nephews. I was not there, but I will always remember Joe. And I take a certain satisfaction that death – while unwelcome – did not get the satisfaction he wanted in Joe’s case. He did not die alone.