Don’t get excited. T’wasn’t my day. Let me tell you a story……
There once was a little girl. There hadn’t been another little girl since her mother. The family, well, they weren’t sure what to do with her. They wanted to dress her in frills and lace but her role models were two brothers who embodied the farm life. What to do?
This girl grew up in the shadow of these two men. She emulated and idolized them. They became everything she hoped to become…. until…. one day…. they didn’t love her anymore.
She rode on his motorcycle. He used to take her, after work at Esco, when his bike cooled, for a ride on the tank in front of him. She felt like such a princess. So important! So loved! She begged and he made her a part of his life. She amazed him with her knowledge (after all, she at 6 knew that Pink Floyd came out with “The Wall” the day he went to buy it on vinyl) because she didn’t know any other way to win his heart. He and his fiancee became her aunt and uncle even though they were no more than cousins…. He showed her love – the best way he knew how. She never forgot it. She read the quality of race tracks with him and a pocket knife; then she videotaped his and his brother’s accomplishments on those same tracks all over the state. She kept her maroon satin jacket in the back of the closet from 1990, embroidered with her name because she was a part of that life…. once….
She’s never stopped caring about him and the family she once knew. She invited him to her wedding…. but he wouldn’t come. She’s still here…and she still remembers summer lunches with her belated aunt and the Young and the Restless in the trailer. She remembers him pacing on the phone, his pinky in his mouth as he talked.
Happy belated 50th birthday, Uncle Mike. I still love you. I think I probably always will.
