May 11, 2024 - Saturday

I found out, first thing this morning, that Uncle Ed died in the night. None of us were expecting it to go so quickly when he went into hospice yesterday. I, at least, thought we had weeks. Me and the kids spent a lot of time crying together this morning (all except Jonas, who awkwardly whistled and hummed to himself, like he was trying to block out the world) and the rest of the day was pretty relaxing. I got really, really sick last night though. I was up around 2am (coincidentally, the same time my Uncle Ed passed and my whole family was awake, driving over to hospice), dry heaving in the bathroom. Nothing came up, but I felt so sick that I cancelled on Claire. I feel bad, because I do want to invest some time into a friendship with her, but it needed to be done. I wasn't in a good place physically or emotionally, really. 

What can I say about Uncle Ed? Well, he was gruff. And he was kind of a jerk at times. He told me I looked pregnant at one Thanksgiving dinner when I definitely wasn't and he told me about seeing my dad's penis and the story was super weird and made me want to barf and die all at the same time. BUT. He was also generous and incredibly loyal. He called Mr. Softee every time we visited his house and bought us all ice cream off of the ice cream truck. He tailored his whole property around hosting people, mostly his family. He was at every single family event and trained his three children (all adults now) to have that exact same family loyalty. He was honest and funny. He called me Mademoiselle Josette from the time I was 16 on and always asked about my life and what I was up to. He included me and made me feel seen and important to him. He kept traditions going after mommom died, even though I know it was really hard to keep them going when others weren't helping...like Cherrystone. His favorite place ever. No, we didn't have the closest relationship, but losing him is like losing one of the family anchors. I wonder how much will float free and disappear from our lives without him. He'll be so missed by so many. 

I did end up feeling well enough to do some productive things today. I did some laundry and I organized the garage. It feels like I have to organize the garage every time we clean it up, thanks to everyone just dropping their shit on the ground everywhere. *eye roll* Anyway, I'm thankful I was able to spend the day at home with family. I had a good text exchange with Chelsea that I'm super grateful for, because we've been in a weird place with our relationship for a couple of years.