“Each one of here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them – we can love completely without complete understanding” (from A River Runs Through It).

This is a letter I wish I could have written or something I wish I could have said to two of my uncles while they were still alive.

I think about you quite a lot now that you’re gone. I still feel the void whenever the family gets together at the annual reunion and I keep expecting each of you to come walking up the driveway with your distinctive gaits. I can still hear your laughter and see your smiles.

I would tell you that I loved you. I don’t think I told either of that while you were living, but I did. You were different from each other and from everybody else, but that’s what made you special. You were you.

I would tell you that I have so many questions. Like how did you figure the whole uncle thing out? And have you heard the Beatles Mono Box Set?

I would tell you that I was so very proud of you. You each had hard lives and made some bad choices, but you never gave up. You both fought to the end. I never appreciated how strong you were then, but I do now.

I’d give almost anything to have one more conversation with both of you and be able to tell you the things I can only write now. I think that in the end, despite all your failures and mistakes and bad choices, you ended up as heroes in my book. And I think in God’s book, too.

I can hear Jesus telling you, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You held on and never gave up. You believed in me through every possible storm and never stopped fighting. Enter into your rest.”