The Uncle (standard:drama, 787 words)
Author: RainbowGirl	Added: Sep 20 2000	Views/Reads: 3845/9	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A story about a girl and her eventual realization of the meaning of death.

Steven was my favorite relative. He was my uncle from my mother’s side.
Steven was very tall and he had dark hair and eyes. He was the person 
who taught me to ride my first bike and how to play checkers, he was 
like having another kid at family gatherings. He would spend the whole 
time playing with me. I loved him more than any other relative in my 
family. I never thought anything was wrong with him. I didn’t think 
that he was going to die or that he was sick. I did not even know what 
death was. 

A week after my ninth birthday Uncle Steven went into the hospital for
the first of three very long stays. My mother told me that he was in 
the hospital because he had a disease called pneumonia. I did not think 
that being in the hospital for a month was long when you had pneumonia. 
No one told me what pneumonia was. I visited him every other day. When 
he got out of the hospital he was about the same as he was before. 

Around Hanukkah he began to get sick again. He didn’t go sledding with
me and he coughed  a lot. I thought he had a cold.  Instead of 
sledding, we sat inside of Grandma’s house in front of a fire playing 
checkers. It was to be my last Hanukkah with Uncle Steven. 

On January first Uncle Steven entered the Hospital for the second time.
Again My mother said he had pneumonia. He stayed in the hospital for 
six long weeks. I visited him every day. I liked to go to the hospital. 
It was fun because we would play checkers and I got to eat the funny 
tasting food. We would sit in his room and play checkers or backgammon. 
In mid February he left the hospital and went back to Grandma’s house. 
He was pale and thin now and his eyes didn’t have their sparkle and his 
hair was dull. He now slept most of the time and he tired easily. It 
was all down hill from there. 

The months until my tenth birthday went by very slowly. Steven never
seemed to get any better; although, my mother told me that every day he 
was. On May twenty-third my Grandma threw a big party for him. It was 
his thirtieth birthday. The party had a evil cloud hanging over it. It 
seamed like it was his last one, how did they know. All of the 
relatives from Europe came. They had the party at Crater Creek Country 
Club where he played golf. It was a nice party. 

On June twenty-seventh, the day after my birthday, Uncle Steven want
back into the hospital again. I figured that he had pneumonia again, so 
I went on my trip to Europe with my dad. I did not think that he was 
going to die or that I was going to miss any time with him. I called 
him twice a week during my trip. He always said that he was fine and he 
asked me what I was doing. 

On august nineteenth I got back form my trip and went straight to the
hospital to see Uncle Steven. I went in to his room and it took me a 
moment to recognize him. He had gotten thinner and paler since June. He 
looked like something out of a horror novel. I spent the whole day and 
most of the night in his room with him. We played checkers and 
nintendo. We talked about my vacation and about when school was 
starting. He never once complained to me about his sickness or that he 
was tired while I was there. He did not say what was the matter with 
him. I found out when I was twelve that he had wasting sickness, a 
opportunistic disease that he got from having AIDS. I just thought that 
he had pneumonia. 

The next morning when I awoke my mother was standing over me. She looked
like she had been crying because her face was red and puffy. “ Uncle 
Steven is dead,” was the only thing she said, and then she broke into 
tears. I didn’t understand why she was crying, I did not even know what 
death was. I thought that I would see Uncle Steven again. Until the 
funeral I did not understand. 

I walked into the funeral hall thinking that nothing was wrong, I did
not know what death was. I thought that he would be his normal, happy, 
cheerful, chatty self. When I saw the coffin I knew that I would never 
see him again. I broke into tears and I finally realized what death 
was.


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