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i visited my sick uncle today.

i suppose one could say that he is not quite sick, but he is on his deathbed. he has been battling cancer for the past couple of years, and at this point, there is nothing left he can do. his organs have been failing him one by one.
when i saw him today, he was not the man i once knew. my uncle has always been an active and jovial man. the best ways i have gotten to know him are through his love for nature and God’s creation. he had a huge aquarium for several years, and every time we came to visit, we commented on his newest fish, the deep maroon color of its fin, or its quirky body shape.
my sister and i were always looking for things to do in his great big house. all of his children were older than us, so we were treated like the kids we were. thanks to our uncle, who always seemed to buy everything in bulk – even the things that would never be utilized in a house with no children – we discovered pop-ice. for some reason, he went through a phase where he bought big boxes of flavor-ice popsicles, the pop-ice name brand. my sister and i snuck down into the basement in the middle of the night snooping for the box. we’d choose our favorite colors to freeze, gauging the appropriate amount according to the number of nights we would be staying. the next night, after our parents went to bed, we snuck down and slurped on our secret treats, returning to bed with our tongues stained blue and red.
and then there were the geese. he was the only man i ever knew who owned and cared for geese. since he had a pond built in his backyard, owning geese does, in fact, make sense. there were four of them: snowy white with bright orange beaks. a hungry fox came down to the cage and devoured them one night, so that phase ended quickly.
i remember the year he bought his dream car. after marrying off two of his daughters, he bought his beautiful black jag. too bad i was too young to drive it at the time, but only recently has it hidden itself in the garage.
he has the most distinct laugh. whenever i think of the living room, i picture all of our parents and aunts and uncles sitting amongst each other, laughing and talking. his laugh is forever embedded in my memory.

seeing him today really hit me hard. no longer can he laugh, he has lost his voice, and he now only speaks in strained whispers. and only when completely necessary. his face is sunken in; it’s as if he has aged fifteen years in two months. his skin and the whites of his eyes are yellow, due to the jaundice that set in one month ago. sores and scabs cover his body, where random infections have engulfed his skin. he no longer walks, eats, nor goes to the bathroom on his own. my uncle is on his deathbed. the fear in his family’s eyes in non-existent. clear in their eyes, however, is their worry and their pain. now my uncle lays in the living room as everyone sits around him. yesterday, even he became emotional; he hated having everyone see him like this. he can no longer entertain his guests.

it’s only a matter of time.
my uncle is on his deathbed.