Come Near Me, While I Sing Of Ancient Ways

“Hey baby girl, give me your hand, you’re coming home with me.”

My uncle Jim walked up to the swing where I was sitting, stoned out of my thirteen year old mind, two weeks out of a psych ward where my mom had parked me for a few frightening months while she sorted out her latest divorce. He and my beloved aunt were home for a visit, news had traveled fast of my mother’s latest inability to mother.  Hearing Jim’s low, soft voice brought a sense of deep relief, all things good lived in that man and he came to collect me back into his circle of safety. A few short hours later I was packed into the backseat of his beat up old car headed for the Oklahoma border, they were worried my mother would change her mind. I knew she would be relieved.

Jim is an interesting man. Half Cherokee, half white, tall and lanky, his face a craggy combination bordering on severely handsome but softened by the laugh lines surrounding his light brown eyes and the gentle demeanor he wears like a second skin. Jim’s father died when he was young and he grew up in harsh poverty, his mother keeping the house with little more than sheer determination and a willingness to do any honest day’s work to provide for her two daughters and son. He quit school early and joined the Army when he was seventeen. Lying through his teeth and passing off a few altered documents with a wink and a nod from the recruiter, he ended up in Vietnam eight weeks later, living through two tours of duty and emerging with a high appreciation of military life and an everlasting love for the Vietnamese people. He also found out he was smart, genius smart, unfortunately Jim didn’t trust that discovery until he was nearly forty. Growing up hungry in hand me downs on the wrong side of the tracks will do that to you, cause you to undermine the naked glorious truth of yourself. Poverty breeds worse ills than an empty belly and ignorance, it’s a womb of continuous self denial. Natural born gifts tend to go unopened under a constant onslaught of no. 

This was my second long trip to Oklahoma City, I had spent the previous summer there as well – another of Jim’s mercy missions. He was my guardian angel, always showing up in the nick of time, making my mother feel good, less guilty, about sending me off. I was so grateful for his ability to take me away without a scene, dealing with my high strung mother alone, magically showing up with my suitcase and casually asking me if I was ready to roll. My Aunt Edith always quietly beaming at his calm handling of her horribly fucked up family. Those two folded me up seamlessly into their lives without skipping a beat.

Jim was an honest man and he dealt with people in a quiet, open manner, he did it persuasively or he got serious. You didn’t want to see Jim when he was getting serious with you, once he made up his mind that you were clearly in the wrong or an inveterate, sniveling asshole, he got hard. He never hit a woman in his life, but he certainly spanked his fair share of sassy children and he pounded more than a few men straight into the dirt when they wouldn’t act with integrity. Jim would eat his share of shit to keep the peace, bend over backwards to accommodate recalcitrance, but once you crossed his line, running fast in the other direction was a real smart idea. The man had no fear. I only saw him pushed past the limit twice; the first time was with my drunken stepfather, the second with a man who made a shockingly lewd remark to me at the laundromat when I was twelve. Neither man got up in the same shape after Jim broke his temper. 

My uncle kept me safe when he could, gave me my heart’s one true desire, taught me a strong work ethic and how to debate like a demon. He encouraged a deep appreciation for my love of books, explained when not to take crap and when to give a gracious nod to different perspectives. He not only loved me, he liked me. The man wrung himself out trying to show me how to like myself without false vanity, giving me an honest ability of how to judge my strengths and weaknesses. He taught me humility along with the ability to apologize and how to recognize the truth of a man’s word- he offered me the tools to fix what went wrong in life and make my way successfully in the world. Jim gave me an unerring inner compass, the one gift all parents should bestow on their children.

That summer ended with Jim joining the Air Force. I went back home when they flew off to Okinawa. Talking with Jim after Edith’s funeral many years later, he told me the only regret he ever had was not taking me with them when they left for Japan. He said it was a huge mistake that he’d never forgiven himself for making. That was so hard to hear.

Uncle Jim married my beautiful aunt after a year’s courtship, raised her four year old daughter as his own and added three beautiful sons to their life. He loved Edith madly until the day she died twelve years ago and he finished raising their children on his own. Fortunately, life  blessed him with another good wife to love and two more beautiful children. He currently has eight grandchildren, with more on the way if I know my healthy cousins. This good man has seen all of his dreams realized, a life filled with love, successful children, financial prosperity, numerous professional accolades, and ownership of hundred acres with a house he hand built.

I deeply love this man. My Uncle Jim was the first best man in my life, his influence significantly shaped the woman I’ve become. I most certainly would not have the inner richness and clear sanity I live with today without his example of hard fast love tempered with a strong, teaching hand and his abiding bedrock faith that I was a girl actually worth loving.

Jim was one of the greatest gifts of my life.