MY UNCLE PASSES AWAY, AND I NEED TO PUT ON WEIGHT

I apologize if that title sounds a little self-absorbed, but trust that it will make sense as you read this post.

So about ten days ago, my Eldest Uncle, who had been fighting leukemia for more than a year, died. It wasn’t an abrupt end for him. By the time it was all over, the cancer cells had completely compromised his immune system, and a bout of leukemia left him bedridden. He lost weight rapidly, seemingly aging twenty years in a few weeks. He also developed a serious fever and, possibly during the delirium, reportedly tore out the tube that had been feeding oxygen to his burnt-out, non-functioning lungs in a bid to end his unimaginable suffering.

The viewing of the body took place last Friday. Not only did my parents fly in from Florida, but relatives I hadn’t seen since I was a small child also showed up to pay their respects. Although, as a collection of individuals, they came from disparate geographic locations and comprised a wide variety of rungs on the economic ladder, they had a common culture to guide them in their mourning.

And there was another thing everyone had in common: They all, without exception, took time out from their grieving to tell me I was getting thin.

I suppose everyone has their own way of dealing with death, especially when it befalls a friend or loved one. Some people shut themselves down emotionally; others get philosophical. Apparently, among my relatives and their extended brethren – those who grew up in the same village half-a-world away – you cope by telling other people that they need to eat more. Truly, I must have made for an easy target, having been blessed in my twenties with arms resembling pipe cleaners.

And so, as you can probably imagine, there came a seemingly-endless procession of alarmed comments from people I barely knew, or knew all too well: Uncles I hadn’t seen in years; aunts I had spoken to just the week before; friends of my grandmother who offered to hand-feed me barbecued roast pork; a woman whose home in Tampa my family once visited when I was in elementary school.

I hadn’t seen the woman since, although, if I recall correctly, she made pretty good barbecued roast pork herself. Unfortunately, our reintroduction came during what I considered to be an extremely inopportune time, when I was trying to console R., my cousin and Eldest Uncle’s older son. He had sat down next to me, and it seemed as if he had something he wanted to get off his chest, some catharsis he needed to achieve.

“So how’s my favorite cousin?” he had asked. For the record, I am not his favorite cousin, and I’m sure he knows that I know. But the fact that he said it convinced me that an unburdening was at hand. I told him that I was sorry for his loss.

“Nah, it’s okay,” R. said. He explained that his father’s passing had been for the best. Although he’d miss the old man’s presence in his life, he was also glad that he wouldn’t have to visit the hospice anymore, would not have to see his father crumpled up in pain, hair fallen out, skin covered in bedsores, a depressing mass of tubes attached to his head, arms, and chest indicating how fleeting his time really was. I knew exactly what R. was talking about, having seen Eldest Uncle on the night before he died. I had been shocked by how irrevocably broken he looked. His once-sturdy limbs had atrophied, gnawed down by disease until they were as unhealthy-looking as, I suppose, my own.

I thought I could detect something more that my cousin wanted to say. But then my mother intervened, practically shoving this old acquaintance into our midst. The stranger barely paid R. any mind at all, despite the fact that we were at his father’s funeral. She just gabbed on and on about how thin I had become since that fateful family visit, when I had been eighteen years younger and, admittedly, a bit on the chubby side.

By the time I managed to break free of her, R. had disappeared. I managed to talk to him some more later, which probably didn’t matter in the grand scheme of funeral-related things. Everyone, save my mother’s old friend, gave him words of encouragement, told him to keep his chin up, etc. What else do you tell someone who just lost their dad? To be honest, I was upset at my mother, and that woman whose name I cannot even recall, until I came to terms with the fact that everyone has their own way of dealing with death.

Now, when I look back, I actually find sources of amusement in that terrible time. The day after the viewing, there was a funeral service at Greenwood Cemetery, then a banquet, during which everyone encouraged me to eat more of everything. Now it almost seems like a happy couple of days, given the abundance of distant relatives, hugs, laughter. I guess the second lesson I learned is: Life goes on, and we’re all going to be okay. We just need time to regain our bearings, to recover from the momentary loss of equilibrium.

I really do think R. is going to be fine. The first inkling of hope turned up towards the end of the viewing, after I rounded the table with the shrine dedicated to Eldest Uncle, thin ribbons of fragrant smoke hovering above the ornate tribute. I faced the casket containing my dead relative’s body, said good-bye to him one last time. Then I walked a few more steps to where his immediate family, including R., awaited my words of comfort and consolation.

They did not need them after all. “It’s going to be okay,” R. told me, to my own surprise. But then, as I should have expected, he looked me over and added, “Man, you’ve lost a lot of weight lately.”