GUS: a special uncle

Creative Forums Creative Writing
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To Carolyn, Linda, Wendy too,
You have the greatest Dad.
When I was young he gave to me
Some time you should have had.

A bow and arrows he made me;
A knife that I could throw.
In his workshop I found with wood
The skill that I now know.

While sanding through my finger nail
To be a man I learned.
He laughed and said, “Go bleed outside”,
And to his work returned.

When finished with a lacquer pail
The thing he liked to try
By putting it upon a fire
To blow it through the sky.

Once flying with him in his plane
He did a loop the loop.
By Gus I almost peed my pants
And lost my noonday soup.

You lived your life upon the edge
Without a lot of fuss.
And now I want to say to you
You’ve had a great life Gus.

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Wholesome poem of remembrance, DEB, or rather: Doug E Barr.

Has the Father passed away? A Eulogy?

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:smiley: =D>

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Thanks Colin. My Uncle Gus, my mother’s 87 year old younger brother, has not yet passed away. He lives with his eldest daughter Carolyn. He is blind and his knee has deteriorated to the point he can no longer walk which was pretty well his only activity. Life happens but the end is still sad.

I had never known Carolyn but we have become good friends. Except for my mother, she and my “special niece Elia” have been my only family support. Carolyn and I share the experiences of living with a declining parent. I don’t know if my father heard my tribute to him because I delivered it at his memorial. That is almost invariably the case. I didn’t want Gus to miss hearing what I think of him. Carolyn told me he laughed and said I was a good poet. I think she and her sister Linda cried. Perhaps they will read the poem at their Dad’s funeral. I think I did something useful.

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Thanks CS. Gus was crazy funny. I just received a letter from my cousin who informed me that it is Gus’s 89th birthday tomorrow, June 1. My mother is 2years+ older. It was her responsibility to look after her little brother and though she can’t now remember the day of the week, she can still remember the times that she lost him only to find him again close to the railway tracks watching the trains go by. The plane he did his loops in had a gas gauge, altimeter, compass and a very prominent plastic sign that read “no aerobatics”.