The End

It was as close to a miracle as I had ever witnessed. I watched him sip whiskey from that same glass for the last 39 years. I must have poured him two fingers a million times. How could a glass so thin and delicate last so long? How could a man, so beat-up and broken last so long?

It was a sunny day in the mid 80's with a warm light breeze. All morning he watched children playing on the beach and in the river and watched boats come and go from the dock when a new group would take turns water-skiing, wake-boarding or tubing. As the crowd gathered around the pavilion for lunch I brought him a plate, but he wasn't hungry. "Just get me two fingers please" was all he said. "Yes Sir" was my only reply and it still gave me that old familiar little charge to say it. He sipped, barely wetting his tongue each time. He watched and smiled as his family from all over the country laughed and carried on. After a while, he nodded off and I was watching him as the glass slipped off the edge of his favorite Adirondack chair and shattered on the concrete floor.

My earliest memory of Uncle Charlie is buried deep in my childhood, but he wasn't "Uncle Charlie" then. I called him "Chuck" as far back as I can remember. I was "precocious" to put it politely. By middle school, some would say a "black sheep" or even a "bad seed." I'm only vaguely aware of him having always been a part of my life. Our families were friends. He and his wife had four kids and I was the youngest of three in mine. We lived on the same street. I suppose I had a little-girl crush on him at one point. I liked the way he took the time to answer questions. He was never dismissive the way most adults were.

My family fell apart in the aftermath of the 2007 Great Recession, though I knew nothing of economics until many years later. For us it was just the final nail in the coffin. Various tragedies unfolded for me over a decade or so half way around the world and back. I hadn't seen him or even much thought about him for over 10 years when I moved back, determined to start over where I had begun. Instead, I hit rock-bottom and that's what brought me back to him in the autumn of '24 just before my 24th birthday. It's been a lifetime since then, 39 years to be more precise. I hadn't been to a family reunion in several years. It wasn't until the moment he was gone that I realized this place formed the backdrop of most of my life and he, more than anyone else, made me who I'd become.

Arrangements had already been made and a local mortuary collected him quickly and quietly without much fuss. The reunion went on. In the 24 hours since his death, I'd heard dozens of arguments about just who he was and how old that glass was. Nobody really knew the man the way I did. They only knew how he and his place featured in their own lives. Naturally, dying in the middle of a crowded annual family reunion was going to elicit a lot of conversation. None of it was in any way disrespectful even though there were so many divergent opinions of who he was. They could all tell stories about every inch of the place and the impression he left on them, but none seemed to have a clear idea of the man himself. I had heard variously,

"... the old bastard had a lucky charm up his ass....

"... he could be so mean....no-shit my old man hasn't spoken to him in almost 40 years....

"... he was so kind and supportive,...analytical,...intense,...creative,...manipulative,...sweet,...controlling,...hard,...angry,...violent,...predictable,...unpredictable.

"... my god he could do anything....

"... he laughed when I drove his tractor into the river...

"... he beat me when my sister fell off the tire swing...

"... he gave us a dirt bike. I crashed into a bush and never rode again...

"... he taught me to... read,...write,...build,...use tools,...work,...swim,...think,...sail,...play,...drink,...plant,...butcher,...argue,...drive,...fight, and on and on."

He was in everything you could see from where we stood under the pavilion by the river. Details of his property and the immediate surroundings featured prominently in the lives of most of those present, but no one there knew him the way I did. Listening to so many other people recount who and what he was to them, I felt compelled to reveal the man nobody else seemed to really know. As I began, I thought I was going to cry, but I managed to resist because that's what he would have wanted. He had trained me well to control my emotions.

"He once told me that none of us ever has the father we want, but if we live long enough, we'll learn that we really had the father we needed to become who we are. If he was hard on you, it was harder on him. He only ever wanted to be who you needed to be well."

As he got older, nearby neighbors began to call him Uncle Charlie and it stuck. Over the years, even his own grandchildren referred to him that way, but I only ever called him Sir after he became the Daddy I needed. All things considered, the 40th Annual Hideaway Family Reunion had been a great success.