My uncle Lowell passed away yesterday morning. Apparently he hadn’t been well this past month but I didn’t know so the news came as quite a shock to me. Truthfully, it’s not something I even want to write about.

I imagine you’d probably slap me if you knew that I was. Monday night Mom mentioned to me that you weren’t feeling well. I didn’t realize how poorly you were doing. I certainly didn’t expect this…

I remember all those fishing trips with you and Neal when Brian and I were kids. You guys would let us steer the truck once we got onto the logging roads. God how we loved that. I think we might have been bad luck because we never came back with much to show for our efforts. It didn’t matter to us; to us it was just a lot of fun to be out with our uncles.

I remember when you guys gave us each a knife when we were camping. I also remember cutting you with it not more than ten seconds after you gave it to me. I hadn’t even noticed but then I saw the blood running out of your hand. “Did I do that?” I asked. You chuckled like you always did and said yes but told me it was no big deal. Dumb-ass kid…

I’m glad that I got to see you last month. I wish I would have known it would be the last time but then again maybe I wouldn’t have wanted to know. I do know that I wish it was me that found you. Maybe that would have been easier for you. I know it would have been easier on Ardie but I guess it had to be someone.

I hope things are better for you now. Take care…