Reflection

While I know that my Uncle Bill could be a formidable opponent in the courtroom, I have never encountered that man. I did not know William White the lawyer, I knew Uncle Bill, the spinner of yarns, and the man whose life I could never hold a candle to.

Over the years I have sat and listened to his stories. So many times I have heard the stories. From world war two, when as a sonar man in the Navy he accidentally dropped the sonar dome out the bottom of the ship to where it lay today at the bottom of the Pacific. Or how he and his war buddies dropped gasoline cans from a plane onto the Teas A&M bonfire, igniting it prematurely. Then how he met the woman he would marry six weeks later, and the marriage that would last over half a century.

How do I honor a life such as this? How do you find the words? Where s it written in the tomes of humanity as to paying respect to the greatest man that I have ever know. His gentle smile. Soothing laugh. Listening to the same old jokes over and over again, and laughing, because it was hard not to in his presence.

I could be sad. I could weep for a year. I could fall to my knees and rage at the Gods. Still, none of this will keep him with me. As he said himself, he has been living on borrowed time since 1946. When the final moment comes, he will know that he lived. He will not regret not having taken a chance when he had it. If there was a chance to take, he took it, and if there was risk involved, all the better.

So how to I thank this man above all others? How do I tell him what he has given me? How do I let this man, who was the only grandfather I ever knew, what he has done for me?

This is the only way I know how. Thank you Uncle Bill, I love you.