But Why

I flew to Maryland on Thursday with two goals in mind: to help my cousin Jen celebrate her 41st year and to say goodbye to her dad, my godfather, Uncle Larry.
Growing up, Jen--Jenny--'s family was as much a family to me as my own.  Every school vacation that she and her brother Marty didn't spend with us in Virginia, my brother David and I spent with them in Maryland.  If given the choice, I probably would have switched homes permanently.  I never wanted the vacation fun to end.  Jenny is one of nine siblings so her house was always busy and noisy.  Our days were spent playing game after game and I don't remember a lot about interacting with the adults.  I do remember a few things though:  one day, we had all piled in the van for Uncle Larry to take us somewhere.  He looked in at us and remarked about how much talent was packed into that van and how we could all be whatever we wanted to be.  It puzzled me exceedingly because the last thing I felt was exceptional or even very talented.  The thought stuck though.  I also remember an exhilarating ride in an Austin Healey after Jenny and I spent a long afternoon washing, waxing and rub, rub, rubbing it with a diaper.  Uncle Larry drove us, top down, over the bridge onto Solomon's Island.  To a girl who had not yet been anywhere, it felt like freedom.  I stayed at Jenny's house the week my grandfather died and was with Uncle Larry when we got the news.  I remember him taking us to lunch and being comforting in his own way.  I remember a boat ride and crab traps and being punished excessively for being five minutes late for curfew one fateful night.  I remember him as kind.  He read at my wedding.
I was privileged to see a bit of Uncle Larry's professional side as well.  He was one of five founders of a company that employed 400 people or so.  I attended a couple of company dinners and Christmas parties and took notice of the respect he commanded.  I was proud of him.  And his opinion mattered to me.  So, when, at age 23, I was facing an unplanned pregnancy, I listened when he encouraged me not to consider adoption.  He told me he would provide for my financial needs if that was my main concern.  Jenny and Aunt Peggy were at the table with us and I left with a confidence I hadn't had when we'd arrived.  I never asked for the financial help Uncle Larry offered.  What I needed much more was the shot in the arm of hope that he gave me.
What a strange thing it is--this being a person.  Our lives go by so quickly.  We waste so much time.  And then, one day, we have to die.  It seems like a cruel joke.  At the very least, death could come easily.  We could slip smoothly and quietly away.  But so often, there's a wasting away instead, a slow stripping of everything we were.
My uncle has a plaque in his living room that lists all of the things that cancer can't do.  And yet, it is robbing everyone who knows him of years he should have had.  It is robbing him of retirement and all the things he put off until the serious business of life was in the past.  I have not seen him lamenting those things though.  I have seen him worrying about what everyone else in the room with him is having for lunch.  I have recognized the rough sense of humor he has always had.  I have seen him trying to be an easy patient.
In my mind, I know that we have to die to win heaven.  I know that.  Still, I ask--but why?  Why?  Uncle Larry's body seems to be asking the same question because, despite what is obvious to everyone, it is hanging on, doing its job.  Probably because--life is good.  We were made to love it.