Remembering Uncle Allan

My wife’s Uncle Allan passed away very unexpectedly on Saturday.

I’ll never forget the call we received from her Mom as we pulled away from the airport after a very enjoyable and restful week in Clearwater Beach. 

“I just went upstairs to check on your Uncle, because he wasn’t feeling well today,” she said. “He’s gone.”

She said she had called 9-1-1 and wanted to know how soon we could get to her house.

By the time we arrived, only two of a cadre of police officers, who responded to her call remained. I guess that’s standard operating procedure, but hardly comforting for someone dealing with the shock of personally discovering that her only remaining sibling had passed without warning.

Allan was 76. He had “heart issues” and his doctor had told him to quit smoking, but he was otherwise in apparent good health.  He had a set routine beginning with coffee at 6:00am with his cronies at McDonalds. He loved to walk and could outpace many half his age. In the summer, he was a regular at the driving range.

A Navy veteran and confirmed bachelor, Allan worked in the jewelry industry during its heyday in the Attleboro/Providence area. He lived with my mother in law the last few years following my father in law’s passing and the sale of the house where he had an apartment.  She last saw him early Saturday morning when he was smoking on the front porch.

When he headed upstairs to his room, I’m sure he had no inkling that his name was going to be called a few hours later.

But as I got over the shock,  I realized that even though his passing was sudden, he was in an enviable position, because he had nothing to fear as he approached the proverbial Pearly Gates

While Allan was not an outwardly religious or spiritual person, he lived his life by a clear set of values.

He was a man of integrity; honest to a fault. He offered his thoughts without benefit of the filter that so many of us strain our opinions through.  He told you what he was thinking -- not in a mean or malicious way – but more like Joe Friday just stating the facts.  (His reaction upon realizing where he was on Saturday must have been priceless.)

Though I never heard him express it verbally, he loved his family. He took care of both his parents as they became elderly and infirmed. You could tell he took great pride in his niece and nephew (my wife and her brother) and their families.

He was generous. Not in a bang-the-drum-look-at-me kind of way, but quietly around the holidays and at other times.

Though he could have done what he wanted; purchased what he wanted; gone where he wanted, Allan chose to live a modest life.

“He wasn’t as good to himself as he could have been,” is how my mother in law puts it.

His biggest expenditure in recent years was a new car.  He cared little for fancy clothes or expensive dinners.

He loved my wife’s meatballs and lasagna. (The best, by the way.) He always ate too much and took home leftovers.

He had his faults; we all do.  Few of us will have nothing to apologize for when our time comes.

But I like to think that our final grade is based on the totality of our existence and not just on the test(s) that we could have scored better on.

If I'm right, then Uncle Allan gets an A.