The Slow and Steady Advance Goes On...

Last Wednesday, my uncle, Jerry Melton, passed away.  

There have been other people in my family that qualified for the term, “Uncle Jerry.”  But when I used it, I was always referring to my father’s younger brother.  I loved Jerry for being my uncle.  But more than that, especially as I got older, I liked him for being a genuinely nice individual.  The expression he carried on his face most often was a warm and friendly smile.  A smile of anticipation.  Of what you were going to tell him had being going on in your life.  Of his chance to tell you some story of something he had heard that was funny and entertaining.  

Both sides of my family were avid story-tellers.  Uncle Jerry stood out in the way he told them.  They way he would bring you into them, to the point you would see the person he was describing, or would remember clearly the moment he was talking about if you had been a part of it.  And when the punch line came, he’d laugh in a way that invited you to laugh along with him.  Even if the story was something embarrassing you had done (like the time I bought new clothes to play golf with him and my dad and then promptly fell into the mud while playing the first hole), you’d laugh because the way he told it you could see the humor in it.  And it left you no choice but to laugh with him and everyone else that heard it.  

At the time of his passing, Uncle Jerry was in an assisted living home due to an increasingly debilitating condition he had.  It was hard to see him like that, the last few times I visited him there.  But even then there’d be a smile on his face when we came to see him, and his eyes would be bright as he listened to what we had to say to him.  As if we had reminded him of some of his stories that he would be telling us had he the wherewithal to do so.  

It was sad, though not surprising, to hear of his passing.  It has left me feeling lost and depressed.  

The title of this entry comes from a quote from Henry James, the famed novelist from the turn of the century.  I was reminded of his quote after hearing the news about my uncle.  

“Life is a slow and steady advance into enemy territory.”  

The quote captured my attention from the moment I came across it.  It so perfectly captures the growing sense of incredulity one feels as the years pass, as “comrades in arms” on this advance fall by the wayside, as the terrain surrounding you becomes more and more alien and foreign.  After ending the call with my dad where he gave me the news, it came to me that I no longer had any uncles.  Jerry was the last.  The routines that had formed the boundaries of my life as a boy, visiting on holidays, catching him up on what I’d been doing between visits, feeling his genuine interest and affection, seeing him smile, listening him tell a story I may have heard countless times before, but which could still make me laugh despite that because of the pleasure he took and gave in telling it.  Those routines are gone.  Casualties of this steady advance.  From a homeland I can’t go back and see again. 

Sadness…  Such sadness…

I once heard that there are three stages of extinction a person goes through.  The first is death, the Physical Extinction.  The second, is when the last person that knew you personally is gone, and there is no one around that has a direct memory of you.  The third and final form of extinction is when your name is last spoken, when the last record of you is lost, destroyed, or thrown away, when history has forgotten you.  

Only the very famous, or the very diabolical, get to survive past stage two.  That is the way of things as we march forward.  Toward some objective that we can’t clearly name.  For a victory we’ll probably never see.  But while I march... While we march together, I will remember  my Uncle Jerry.  I’ll keep going forward, if for no other reason than to keep saying, “I remember him.  A kindly man whom I loved and appreciated and helped me learn to laugh at myself.”  

Good bye, Jerry.  Thank you for making this advance so much more bearable, and being such a good comrade along the way.