LISA
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At two fifty-five that morning, my uncle took his last breath. I was watching his chest rise and fall … and then it didn't anymore. I stood up, numb, and although I knew it was coming, I still couldn't believe that he was gone. The only thing I felt was Jennie's arms as they came around me and she held me. She was so small, but her little body was comfort. She stayed like that when the nurses came in and pronounced his death and the time. She didn't let go when they covered him and rolled him from the room.
When we had to get his belongings and leave the room, she stayed close to my side. Her parents and her older brother Jackson were in the hall when we walked out. It was like I had a family. People there that I never expected.
Uncle D must have known I'd have this. This was why he liked Jennie so much. He could go and know I'd be okay.
Jennie slipped her hand in mine as we went out to her car and followed her parents to their house. Her brother Jackson drove my Jeep to the house and then I was offered food I couldn't eat before being shown JK's bedroom.
When Jennie left me there alone, I finally let the tears I'd been battling fall.
The man I had loved since I was a kid was gone. I wouldn't hear him curse anymore, I wouldn't eat burned biscuits and gravy when I came home from school, and he wouldn't beat me at Texas Hold 'Em and brag about it for days. I would miss every one of those things. I'd give anything just to have him back.
Sleep finally came and I was thankful for the darkness.
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The funeral was two days later in Huntsville at the small Baptist church my uncle had gone to since he was a boy. His parents had been buried in the graveyard in the back, and so had his wife and child over thirty years ago. She'd died in childbirth, as did their baby girl. He had never remarried or even dated.
He told me once that when you find the woman you can love forever, you don't get over her. I didn't believe him then, but I wondered as I grew older if maybe that was true.
Jennie, JK, their two brothers who lived in Franklin, and their parents were there beside me. The people from town who had known Uncle D and the church folk all stood around his grave as he was lowered into the ground. Jennie's hand stayed in mine through it all. It was like she knew I could fall apart if she wasn't there to help me.
JK stood on the other side of me, and it was like I had a family. I couldn't help but feel like Uncle D had orchestrated this all before he left. I wasn't alone. If he could watch things from up there in the beer-drinking, cursing, poker-playing heaven he was in, he was smiling. This would make him happy.
Especially the roses on his grave with the deck of cards fanned out in a circle as the centerpiece. That had been Jennie's idea. He'd think that was a riot.
JK's hand was on my shoulder as the first shovel of dirt covered the grave. Uncle D was really gone. But I would live a life that would make him proud of me.
Lifting my head toward the sky, I said a silent thank-you for the life he'd given me. The little girl who needed a home was given not only that, but also the love of an old man who needed someone himself. We had been there for each other and it had worked for both of us. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
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