Everybody Has a Story: Wide-eyed kid, older now, reflects on a giant – regal Uncle John

My uncle John seemed like a movie star!

He lived in sunny Southern California, and if you’re a kid from the Pacific Northwest, that’s plenty enough qualification to be one. Never mind that he lived in San Diego and sold real estate. He even had a slim, pretty starlet for a wife. In reality, she was a stewardess (as they were called in those days), but that was hardly a letdown, as she spoke with an English accent and seemingly was always jetting off to some exotic European capital.

Uncle John had left stodgy old Vancouver to make his fortune in the land of milk and honey. We visited him on a Christmas vacation and found him fit and tan and smelling like a battle between Old Spice and Chivas Regal scotch. The former he applied liberally, the latter he drank extensively. He seemed to always have a smile on his face, a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, and a nearby glass with ice and caramel liquid. He was loud and happy, and bellicose in a docile sort of way.

He and his wife lived in a condominium in a gated community surrounded by palm trees and warm, gentle breezes blowing in from the sea. All of it was magical to someone used to cold-ish winters, and I was awed by the way Californians celebrated Christmas without a hint or a hope of snow or cold.

Uncle John grew in stature in my eyes, even as he bolted for the door whenever the backup Chivas Regal supply threatened to get low. Despite his view that children should be seen but not heard, he would talk with me about his adventures in real estate amidst the super wealthy of San Diego. It seemed complex to me at the time, but he was riding the wave of a growing city as millions moved to the southernmost part of the Golden State. While I could never imagine living in such a hot, dry place with a lack of soaring green trees, he reveled in the heat and sand, like a king amongst his domains. The years went by. I grew up, graduated from college and became a commercial banker. A few years ago, I was walking back to my office in downtown Vancouver when I saw a man strolling toward me on the sidewalk. I stopped and stared and shouted, “Uncle John!”

But wow, he had changed. He’d made some poor financial moves and gone through hard times, and as his financial standing decreased, his drinking had increased. His wife had left him and his health had too. Alcohol had really done him in. Back in Vancouver, he lived in Smith Tower, that tall, round, downtown building.

We stood there in the spring sunshine and talked for a long while. He still had that tanned forehead, confident smile and regal way of speaking that made you hang on every word. He lived in the past, but was now enjoying his “banker nephew” conversing with him. It probably reminded him of his whirling days in business, of buying and selling and transacting.

He was starting to get tired, so we said our goodbyes, promising to connect again at a future family gathering. I watched him walk the final block home, happy that he was so happy with our impromptu conversation.

Later that evening, I got a call from my mother. She told me that Uncle John had passed away that afternoon. He was found sitting on the couch, his recently pedicured bare feet crossed on an ottoman, his head lying back where he’d taken his final slumber, and a wide, content smile on his face. I told her that I just had seen him that day, and she told me that I was probably the last person to speak with him.

Later on, after the viewings and rosaries and wake, and after talking to his former wife and my cousins, I realized something. No matter what kind of person you are or turned out to be, despite failings and deterioration, at the end, it always feels good to be elevated. Even by a wide-eyed kid who’d looked upon you as a giant, only to witness your exit in a small but colossal way.

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