The only time I remember speaking with my Great Uncle Midge was when I was 14 years old and he was 91. I was in Nova Scotia with my parents to visit family and someone mentioned that Midge was in a nursing home and could use a visitor.
I didn’t want to go; in fact, the thought of meeting this aged relative for the first time frightened me a bit. I went anyway. Midge had been sent to the nursing home to recuperate after falling off his hay wagon. I was also told that during the previous winter he had gotten into a fistfight with one of his neighbors. Both of the elderly men wanted to be the one to shovel out the snow from around the house of a woman who had recently been widowed. I was somewhat shocked to hear about a man who had lived 91 years still mowing hay and fighting over a woman.
The bed Uncle Midge lay on was in the sunroom of the nursing home and his face spread out a welcoming smile when I sat down beside him. “You’re Horace’s daughter, aren’t you?” he said. Until then, I’d been told that I looked more like my mother than my father. I was surprised and very impressed that by looking at me, he could so quickly identify my place in the family. Then he said, “I’m old and probably going to die soon, but I don’t mind. I’ve lived a great life.” As I recall I could think of no response.
Then he proceeded to talk about our family. “You know,” he said, “we have a lot of ministers in our family but, it’s not our fault.” I giggled at his assessment, but he seemed quite serious and continued. One by one, he named each relative who had joined the clergy. Moreover, one by one he said, “Now he wasn’t our fault. He took after his mother, you know.” Or, for several he said, “He wasn’t our fault, because he always favored his father.” In each case, he ruled out any responsibility to our lineage. It was a large family, but to my knowledge, he didn’t miss one who had been called to the ministry. By the time he was done, he seemed quite content to have offered me proof and I was barely containing my laughter.
Now, I believe that he was trying to get the reaction from me that he did. He was trying to get his teenage grandniece to giggle. Perhaps, he was also trying to get me to let go of a few stereotypes and open my heart a bit more.
As the conversation ended, he thanked me for coming and announced that his lady friend (the woman he had won that fistfight over last winter) was about to arrive. He indicated that he wanted me to go now. As I was leaving his bedside, in walked a woman with white hair, no teeth and a big smile. She was caring a single rose.
My Turn 