Uncle Al [1931 - 2018]

Heaven just got a lot louder and more fun on Sunday. My Uncle Al passed away yesterday. He was a boisterous man equipped with the loudest and most memorable laugh one is likely to hear.

This image comes to mind of Uncle Al being granted access through the pearly gates of heaven: He’ll say something ‘off color’ to Jesus in the reception area intending to be funny. While Jesus looks to his Sargent at Arms to decide if this guy is for real or not, Al would already have blown passed him laughing at his own joke and working his way down the reception line. The inhabitants of this rarified air will hear him coming from miles away, or by whatever unit of distance is used in heaven.

“Hey, you hear that laugh, Al’s here,” says one of the locals smiling in anticipation of the good times to come.

“Al’s here, how,” asks another with an incredulous look on his face.

“Oh sure, Judy, his wife, arrived here a year ago. She’d been working diligently to expunge his record.”

During his many raucous years he was somehow lucky enough to woo possibly the only woman who could handle him, my Aunt Judy. They met at an Irish pub in Los Angeles back in the ‘60s. Upon learning that his perfect counterweight lived nearby, his pick up line “You are geographically desirable” won him the opportunity for a date.

Aunt Judy passed away a year ago. It is for certain that Uncle Al’s guardian angel needed every bit of that year for her Public Relations work in heaven to grease the skids, so to speak, vying for Al’s approval into the Promised Land.

This rambunctious rascal of a fella spent the last years being gentle and caring for his lovely wife in her waning years. He went to church almost every day asking the pastor after mass if there were chores he could help with. Heaven is lucky to have him. Not coincidentally, the decibel level on earth just dropped down a notch, sadly.

Peace to my cousins who have had a rough few years with their ailing parents.

Post script:

·       Talking to my cousin Karen over dinner the night before Uncle Al’s funeral service, she recounted the day the doctor told him he had six months to live. When the doctor left the room Uncle Al turned to Karen and said, “I have six more hair cuts.” And, of course, he laughed. She was smiling when recalling this, smiling and loving her dad. Typical sense of humor from Uncle Al.