Last Friday I got a call from my mother saying that my uncle Charlie had died the evening before. I didn’t know what to say about this, and I still don’t. In the grand scheme of things I ended up being “closer” to my mother’s relatives (Charlie was my mother’s brother in-law) than my father’s because we seemed to see them more. Visits to Aunt Lois and Uncle Charlie’s were quite common growing up. Although I can no longer attend, my mom’s family gets together for thanksgiving and Christmas every year. I remember many times sitting in Lois and Charlie’s house watching the parade waiting for the food to be served.
Charlie’s health had been deteriorating for some time now, and he’d been having heart trouble. The news of his death wasn’t really a shock to anyone – but sad and unfortunate. However, Charlie had already given his contribution to the world. He was a scout master, a former US Army soldier, a small business owner in the small town of Wooster, and raised my cousins to be Eagle Scouts and upstanding members of their community.
