It’s Never Too Late for Love

My Uncle Guy was my mother’s youngest brother. Guy had charm and good looks and a devilish twinkle in his eyes. His sisters and brothers all seemed to understand that Guy was their mother’s favorite. Amazingly, no one seemed to resent that. He was also able to sweet-talk all five of his sisters. As a young man, he developed a reputation for being able to attract any woman he wanted. His family speculated that because it came so easily, he chose to marry the woman who was the least smitten by his allure.

Although my Uncle Guy lived closer geographically to my family, we saw less of him and his family than any of my mother’s other siblings. His wife made it know that we were not welcome in her home. Several of Guy’s brothers chose to ignore the lack of an invitation, but most of his sisters chose to stay away. His three children were ones I did not meet until they we were all young adults. Nonetheless, my uncle could always be counted on when anyone in his family needed him.

When I moved away from my parent’s home and into a college dormitory, my uncle took it upon himself to routinely arrange special dinner “dates” that included his daughter and me. Most of the time, two of our friends who were also living in college dormitories away from home, were invited along as his guests. Those evenings were a night on the town. My uncle would treat us all to dinner in a restaurant that we could not have otherwise afforded. Guy‘s attentiveness and generosity left a deep impression upon me.

Although it was no secret in our family that Uncle Guy was in an unhappy marriage, as far as I know, he never talked openly about it to his own siblings. As the years wore on in his life, my Uncle seemed to grow sadder and more resigned each time I saw him.

There was a hint of sorrow behind his eyes that was deeper than the Funeral Home business he had managed for decades. The grief was also more profound than the role he assumed making telephone calls to notify family members each time one of our kin died. It seemed to me that death had come and taken up residence in his heart.

A year after his wife died, my Uncle Guy surprised me with a phone call just before Christmas. I had not seen him or heard from him in several months. Much to my surprise and delight, I thought I could hear a bit of excitement in his voice. He said he wanted to see me and could be at my house in an hour. I hurried to clean up the clutter in my kitchen, set the table and prepare a fish chowder to serve him for lunch.

When he arrived, he had not chatted long when he announced that he had made a trip to his birthplace in Nova Scotia the summer before. He had just received a videotape of a party he attended there and he wanted to show it to me. I popped it in and as the tape rolled, my 71 year-old uncle exclaimed, “My heart just skipped a beat! That’s her!” I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. But, it was clear that the twinkle in his eye was back. He was in love. She was a woman, he explained, that he had romanced when he was young. She had never married in the intervening years.

Life had returned to his heart and he was not about to let this love get away. Within a year, he was happily married to a woman he loved and who loved him.