A Letter to Uncle Mike

This letter was unread. With earthly eyes anyway. Uncle Mike was too weak to read it when I gave it to him.

I leave it here as a tribute to him...

Dear Uncle Mike,

It is a rare gift - the opportunity to reflect on one man and to consider how he has impacted you personally. I feel blessed to have this time to express to you all that fills my heart when I picture your face in front of me.

First, I smile.

I see you smiling or laughing or both. You are handsome and your eyes sparkle a little, especially when you're laughing. I can hear your voice in my head. It is loud and booming. I'm taken back to an overcrowed kitchen packed for the holidays with food, family, and friends. I'm a little girl and so I can't see anything but the backs of legs. But, I hear you. I know that joyful thunder - "that's uncle Mike" my little heart says and I know that you are good. This is my childhood image of you - handsome and laughing with a joyful thunderous voice.

Years passed and I grew. I came to know you more deeply, more quietly. I am grateful for this.

The quiet man I came to know over coffee, or at the dinner table. The man I asked to be my daughter's godfather. This man brought me even greater joy than the one I remembered from my childhood.

I see your face again. This time it's more serious. You are talking with me. You're listening too. I see us together at mom's dining room table. I'm holding a baby on my lap. You are leaning forward in your chair with your elbows resting on the table. Your hands are folded around your rosary. I love this image, this memory. I can close my eyes and see you exactly as you were in that moment. You're quiet, thinking, discussing and praying. This is my most fond memory of you. I can hear your voice. One petition at that table always stayed the same. "I'd like to pray for an end to abortion" you'd say. You'd say it every time, every time. I can hear your voice so clearly in my mind. Why is that? It's as if I can literally hear your voice outside myself - not in an interior way. That one moment, that one statement, is so vivid it leaps out at me. It is burned into my heart. It presses upon my heart until I can no longer bear it and I begin to cry. Now I cry. I weep. Why am I weeping? The injustice. It bothers me uncle Mike. It is difficult for me. It hurts and my pain is sorrow.

I am sorrowful for my sins, my lack of prayer, my luke warmness, my selfishness. All these have caused your cancer. I know that I am not solely responsible, but that is of no consolation to me. I have in my own way, through my own sins, caused these wounds in you. I am so sorry for this, my brother in Christ. I know that God is Good. I know Jesus is Love. So too then I know that this cancer did not come from Him, but from this sinful world of which I am a part. This is why I am so sorrowful.

You, my beloved uncle, my brother, have shown me Jesus. I see Him in you. I see Him in your simple goodness. I see Him in your humility and patience with others' faults. I see His face in your joy over a garden, or a home made meal, or good music. I see Him in these ways. Thank you for making Him present to me. Thank you for these glimpses. You empty yourself and He is there filling you up. You aren't perfect I know. I don't mean to embarrass you, but to fortify you. It is my hope that this testimony helps to sustain you in your pain and suffering. I see a man who hasn't forgotten that he is made in God's Holy Image. You have chosen to serve rather than be served, to give rather than receive, to love rather than count the hurts and disappointments.

I love you for this witness. You have taught me how to love people as they are. Where they are. Yet, to pray for them all the while. You pray for them to grow close to your Jesus. You seek to love, not judge. To demonstrate God's love, not moralize. You live your life as a witness to Christ without making others feel small in the process. This is the quality I admire most and will seek to duplicate in my own life. I will not be so quick to resent life's injustice. I will try to love others in the moment before me. I will seek out what is good in others and pray for them to become all that God wills them to be.

My third image of you is of you suffering with this ugly cancer. Yet, its ugliness hasn't tainted you. You are more beautiful to me now. I wish you were not suffering. I wish you had no more pain. I wish that I could take all of it away and make you well again. These are the thoughts that lead me to despair. Then, something wonderful happens. Jesus lets me see your beauty shining through it all. Though this image of you now is one of suffering, now I don't see just you. You are not alone. Jesus is with you. I see Him holding you. I see Him holding you in your suffering looking at you like only He can - because He knows. His shining face gleams as he smiles tenderly at you. He wipes away your tears and gently kisses your forehead as a father might do for his sick little boy. His heart is glowing softly. As you lean your head upon His chest for comfort, this glow fills your face. You are beautiful there leaning against Our Lord, Our God.

This is the image I see now. A man, yet a child of God. A man, yet a little soul letting Him care for you. Thse are the images I carry in my heart uncle. First, you are laughing and thunderous. Then, you are quiet and thoughtful. Finally, you are small and lovable.

I am so blessed to have you in my life. I love you as my uncle - yes. But I have grown to love you as a brother in Christ Jesus most of all!

-Kristan