Age Limits

Yesterday, while my wife and I were enjoying our last night out with her mother before she returns to her home in east Tennessee, eating a multi-tapas meal at Chef's Table, my sister called to let me know our uncle, Ralph Maximilian T., had died.

I was just thinking about him and his siblings yesterday while I was showering, wondering if I should blog about my family's humble lives, where my father and my mother and her two siblings all grew up on farms in east Tennessee. Of those four people, two of them ended up with master's degrees, one of them ended up with a PhD and the fourth one, Uncle Ralph, ended up working at the aluminum processing plant with his father.

Now the only ones alive are the ones who pursued baccalaureate and post-graduate university education. Is there a connection? Perhaps.

Uncle Ralph had a long history of health problems but I don't know how many of them are directly related to his line of work. No doubt his skeletal joint problems originated in repetitive, strenuous labor. His wife, my Aunt Polly, died of Alzheimer's disease about two and a half years ago - her health decline was genetically related and her death led to some of Ralph's health decline. He missed her strongly, and spoke of Polly visiting him sometimes, especially in the last couple of weeks (I know how he felt - in my thoughts I still have conversations with my girlfriend who died when I was 10 (37 years ago!) and sometimes the conversations feel real enough to make me believe she's nearby; an active imagination is good for one's sanity!).

Perhaps his children and/or grandchildren will detail Ralph's life in the blogging world. I recall him serving in the Navy during World War II - he was going to visit the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C., next month with one of his daughters. He maintained the family homestead outside of Maryville, Tennessee, and it still belongs in the family. Beside me in this study I have the hardbound book, "Blount County, Tennessee History, 1795-1995," which includes the history of Ralph's and my mother's side of the family.

I'll miss my uncle. He was a kind-hearted man, whose face resembled both my grandfather and grandmother. He takes some family lore to the grave with him, tiny details that swam around in his thoughts that he probably never shared with us because he had the details of daily family living occupying most of his time. I wish I'd spent time with him in his physically active days to learn some of the woodworking skills his father taught him (my grandfather built furniture and other wooden items like the bookcase on the other side of this room, as well as little knickknacks like miniature hillbilly people he made out of walnut shells, including one on the bookcase beside me). In a drawer of an inaccessible clothes dresser I have a wooden whistle with one end carved in the shape of a squirrel that Uncle Ralph made for me as a kid when he visited my house. From him, I got my love of wood carving, having made a few items for my wife - nothing fancy, mind you, but something I can create with a pocket knife and bare hands.

Uncle Ralph and Aunt Polly taught me to enjoy the journey as much as the destination. They owned a caravan converted for road travel (a "conversion van," if you will) and drove their grandchildren on cross-country trips, careening along long-forgotten highways and byways, taking their time to see the curiosity shops and meet local people outside of tourist areas, as opposed to vacationers who rush to a tourist spot like a beach or amusement park and stay trapped within a false world the whole time.

In other words, my uncle and aunt were real people who still had their hands in the soil and lived a quiet life in the country side of suburban living. With their passing, a part of reality goes with them, leaving me to ponder where in this technology-filled world do people like my uncle and aunt still live. A few years ago, my uncle learned how to use a computer, played Solitaire and sent emails as long as he was able to sit at a computer and type.

I am a simple person. I see the world in simple terms. We humans live to reproduce ourselves. Uncle Ralph and Aunt Polly raised two children and cared for their grandchildren. They did not aspire to international fame and fortune but they did travel around the world with their family. In them thrived the secret to species success, even if their way of life and genetic heritage limited their maximum age of good health.

My grandparents lived into their 70s. My uncle and his siblings are living into their 80s, it appears. I gather that their children will live into their 90s (if we exercise, eat well, and take our life-extending prescription drugs, of course, while working in our desk jobs until retirement age).

My uncle takes his Rook-playing skills and family discussions into eternal sleep, too. He had opinions that differed from his brother (my uncle Gordon) and sister (my mother). I've always missed those times when they gathered to play Rook and had serious but fun discussions about politicians or political changes, since one was a staunch Democrat, one was a staunch Republican and one was a moderate in comparison to the other two.

Uncle Ralph, I salute you. I lift a beer in your memory and will cheer during an upcoming NASCAR race, knowing that you still enjoyed sitting and watching those motorsports events on television right up to the end of your life. I'll carve a wooden creature when I take a vacation trip soon and will stop at local shops to see real people along the way. Thanks for everything you taught me!

= = =

My wife and mother in-law attend a bridesmaid luncheon right now, staying on course for celebrating events with our living relatives this weekend, including the rehearsal dinner tonight and my niece's wedding tomorrow. We'll find out later today when my uncle's funeral is planned, hoping that it's on Sunday or Monday so we can visit family during memorial services for my dead relative, Uncle Ralph. We will celebrate both events in sadness and happiness, fitting well into my belief that life and death are one and the same, contributing to the only true measure of human wealth: family.