I still picture him sitting tall and lanky at the head of our long dining table, always taking his place hours too early every Sunday, talking quietly with my Mom or Dad as dinner was cooking, and casually putting his Coffee Crisp next to his place setting, just out of reach of my little fingers.
He was such a gentle soul. My Dad’s youngest brother, he was a bachelor and someone my father kept under his strong and stoic wing. I only learned years after he passed that he may have been mentally challenged. When this information was finally shared with me I recalled that other Aunts and Uncles had at times referred to him as ‘simple’. I couldn’t have cared less, then or now. I always looked forward to his visits. As a child you know who the good people are, the kind ones who will take care of you, look out for you no matter what. He would have protected me from an oncoming train, a savage tiger, or a raging sea. He was good people, and I loved him with all my heart.
Because he was on his own, our family - my parents, older brother and I - would invite him for roast beef supper every week. And he would always bring his favorite candy bar, one that I had long ago decided I didn’t like solely based on its name. This didn’t, however, keep my six year old hands from reaching for the wrapper at least once before bedtime. And this habitual bar was sweet in its own unique way because it became the marker of his arrival, sitting next to his keys and wallet on a counter or near the cutlery, so even if I hadn’t laid eyes on him yet, even if he was in the backyard playing with the dogs, or with my Dad having a cigarette in the garage, I knew Uncle Robert was in our home again.
He couldn’t have been more than forty when my father found him in his apartment, suddenly taken from us by a heart attack. My Dad fell into a mild depression afterwards. Losing a sibling so swiftly, so suddenly, and one that he had watched over so dilligently, I think may have felt more like the loss of an eldest child than a younger brother.
It was an empty feeling at our table every seventh day from that moment on. I would climb up onto our living room sofa, hang my arms over the back, rest my chin on my hands, and stare at the driveway, waiting for his car to pull up onto the boulevard. Our two dogs would sit like little furry sentries at the front door, their puzzled faces turning towards us as our kitchen clock rang past the hour when Uncle Robert should have arrived. I remember the sadness, the deep indescernable ache I felt as a child, missing this gentle giant and his gracious glow. It was as if a willow had been felled in a forest, it’s former home now a hollow echo, a place where the wind now chilled you to the bone despite your many youthful layers, because there was no sturdy trunk, no long tapered boughs to shelter you from it.
One Christmas years later I happened upon this statue of a snowman, a festive figure intended for a fireplace mantle. Except this snowman was not round and jolly, and did not have the cliche corn cob pipe and carrot nose. This snowman looked like someone I’d lost long ago. He was long and slender with gentle features, a top hat, and a little red nose. And his expression was one I hadn’t seen since my uncle had taken his seat at our kitchen table all those Sundays ago. It was something in his smile as it sat there on the store shelf that took me back to roast beef dinners, and driveways, and golden candy wrappers. Every winter when I look at it I see him still, watching over me from the fireplace in that same quiet manner, making sure I take good care, and don’t reach too far for that little chocolate bar.
