On Uncles

Tomorrow, my Uncle Clint is turning 90. I don’t know how old my Uncle David, my Uncle John, and my Uncle Don are. Not 90. Clint, probably to your delight, you win.

My Uncle David and Uncle John have been in my world ever since I can remember. They are my mother’s brothers, and she was always proud of them both. She thought they were good. The story as I understand it is that Uncle John had my photograph in his wallet or whatever it is soldiers have when he went to Viet Nam. That war is not something I’ve ever heard him talk about, and I’m so sorry he had to go, and I’m so glad he came back.

In New England, the way you deal with hard things is you get to work, and you don’t talk about them.

When I was a kid—whatever age it is when you write home to your parents with big, rounded letters, telling them what you bought and how much it cost—I went to Brooklyn for a week or so to babysit my baby cousin Molly, Uncle David and Aunt Chris’s daughter. Now that I think about it, I wonder really what I was doing in New York. I don’t know how I even got there from Boston. Was this a kind of summer camp for my cash-strapped parents? Did my aunt and uncle need cheap daycare so they could get some work done? I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t really care. I got to be in New York City and, like a big girl, I got to push my cousin in her stroller through Central Park until a cop pulled up in his car and told me I probably shouldn’t be there alone. Maybe I wasn’t in Central Park since it’s not in Brooklyn. Who knows. Who cares. It was the 1970s. No cell phones. No idea (or care?) where your kids were. Hazy memories are so full of possibility.

What I do care about is that my aunt and uncle took me to see Saturday Night Fever. I got to see that movie as a kid in the theater in New York City. What I do care about is that we went to the roof of the World Trade Center, and on the ride down, Molly lay on the floor amidst all those feet and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. New York City. Where you can lie down in a crowd and people just make room.

My Uncle David and Aunt Chris were hippies. Chris had long red hair and didn’t wear make-up. She was super smart and swiftly funny. Her studies had brought them to Egypt and god knows where else. I’m too self-involved to remember. Uncle David was the baby of the family. He was a writer and sharply, hilariously, funny. He was sweet. He still is those things. (They both are.) He finished my mom’s book about Louisa Catherine Adams after she died and got it published with Yale University Press. He’s one efficient hippie.

My Uncle John hired to me work in his law office when I was on summer break from Occidental College. These were the days of typewriters and white-out. Countless times (a day), I tried to figure out how to silently remove yet another piece of paper I’d fucked up too much for white-out, but the sound echoed. He never said a word. He had a real secretary, Martha, and a partner, Bob. They were kind and funny. Martha had the Boston accent as did everyone in the office. Her name was Mahhhhtha. I loved saying it, mostly when I was trying to silently cover up paper waste.

Uncle Don came in later to our family. My mom’s sister, Mary, found him after her first husband died of a mysterious illness that shocked and grieved our entire family. Don was like the miracle after the tornado. Mr. Energy. Mr. Oh There’s A Mountain—I Think I Will Climb It. Mr. Nice. It’s now hard to imagine a time when he wasn’t with us. If you want to spot him in a crowd, look for the smiling guy wearing sneakers.

I found Clint ten years ago. He came up when I did 23 and Me as a relative when I was in New York finishing up You Don’t Look Adopted. I had never, ever thought I’d be able to find my birth father, but one phone call to Clint led me to his brother, my bio dad. Not that long after, Clint flew me to Montana so I could meet him, his wife, his son and his son’s family.

Clint picked me up at the airport, and, like that, I was his and he was mine. We were related.

During my visit, Clint said he wanted to tell me something. He looked me square in the eyes with eyes that were not unlike mine. “I love you and will never leave,” he said.

That bond is magical.

I’ve been thinking about family more than ever since my brothers died. My uncles are so important to me, but do they know this to be true? Do they know how foundational they are to my sense of self in the world? To my feelings of belonging?

My aunts and my cousin are all part of that sweet dream pie. Because tomorrow Clint turns 90, I thought I’d focus on my uncles first, and say thank you, say I love you, say I love you I love you I love you.