Walking the Wall

Looking at this lovely mess (you can see where my dishwasher once was) you can see we got a lovely little surprise for this "Labor" day that made the day labor intensive, not labor free–for my husband, myself…and my daughter. When the mess was all cleaned up, and I had done all the dishes and cleared the counter–out she waltzed out with a bunch of dishes from the depths of her room. She was expecting they would magically be done by the great dishwasher–whether that was me or the dishwasher that no longer was in its proper place until the mess from its leak is fully repaired. Well, the dishwasher was incapable of doing them, and I can assure you I wasn’t going to be doing them.

For some reason watching her do the dishes reminded me of my Uncle Mike, he was my favorite uncle and I have wonderfully fond memories of washing dishes at his house when I was my daughter’s age. My uncle was paralyzed from the waist down from a bullet that hit him in the shoulder in Vietnam, traveled down his back, across his spine, and they found it a few years later in his thigh. He was one of the strongest human beings, both physically and mentally, that I have ever known. He had a grip like a vise and once the dishes were done, we were all fair game, once he got a-hold of you there was nothing you could do, you were going to be wheeled over to the water and have your head dunked.

Uncle Mike played a mean game of Battleship, as well, he played it to win, and he played it in all seriousness, but he would use all sorts of accents while playing, acting the role of the opposing force whether it was Japan or Germany or any other country he decided for that game. Sometimes in the midst of a dunking, he’d yell out, "Princess, you’re all wet" or "I guess I sunk your Battleship!"

In 1996 my uncle was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease and let go of this life on Jan. 8, 1998–to this day the memory of watching such a strong man loose control of every part of his body is one of my most painful memories. But he never lost his eyes–he would latch onto you with his eyes, every bit as strong as his hands once were, and they said one thing unequivocally–I love you.

After he died, I had one of my most powerfully real dreams; in the dream I was sitting on a couch with my uncle–this was very jarring because I have never seen my uncle sitting in anything other than a wheel chair. He was slouched down all comfortable into the couch–so different from the man who held himself ramrod straight, and he had such and easy, relaxed grin on his face. We were talking about spiritual things, and it was a long conversation that I would give anything to remember, but I can’t remember any of the words, just the feeling–"It’s all going to be okay, everything is going to be fine, life is good and eternity takes care of itself when life is over"…I woke up with his smile and a complete sense of peace that has stayed with me all these years.

Watching my daughter washing dishes tonight was all it took to bring back a laugh over the dishwater dunking, Battleship, and the sense of peace that comes from memories of a strong man.