“That’s My Favorite Photo of You, Née.”
My family and I shockingly lost my Uncle Steve to a heart attack that took him in his sleep. He was 58 years old and in good health.
It feels like yesterday that I answered my phone in the middle of a work day (something I rarely do if it’s a personal call). After a missed call from my younger brother Jason and a call only 3 minutes later from my sister Julie, my stomach sank and something told me something was wrong.
”Julie? Is everything okay?” I inquire with trepidation. Julie’s erratic breathing greets me as she attempts to form words between her sobs.
”No, Née. Please go somewhere you can talk.” Her voice sounds little, like when we were kids and she would run to me for comfort or reassurance because she was confused or afraid.
I move swiftly past the desks of my colleagues, trying to get out the backdoor to the storage landing where some of us take calls that require discretion, but on the way I can't hold back, “Oh God, Julie, what’s wrong?” The knot in my throat makes speaking a challenge.
”Née, Stevie died this morning.”
As I exit the door from our design office, a ringing in my ears begins as a low hum and gets louder. It feels like someone has kicked me in the solar plexus. I struggle to take a deep breath. My legs weaken and I drop into a baseball catcher’s position near a makeshift handrail that I grab in order to keep from falling backward down the steel stairs. As I attempt to steady myself, Julie shares what she knows. Aunt Becky left for work this morning with Uncle Steve still asleep in the bed, an odd and rare occurrence. She didn’t wake him because he'd had a restless and uncomfortable night, and she was relieved that he was finally able to sleep.
Aunt Becky came home for lunch to find our precious uncle lying in the same position where she had left him that morning. As Julie continues, I can’t make sense of anything, certainly not of the fact that my strong and ever-present uncle has left the planet with no warning and without his customarily joyful and loving goodbye hug.
From my half-kneeling position, I crawl a few feet to a rolled up piece of carpet and plop ungracefully into a seated position, my head dropping between my knees as I begin to sob.
In shock, I utter, ”Julie, this can’t be happening. Please, God,” I beg between fragmented breaths. I feel helpless and alone as I recognize how far I am from the family I love in one of the worst moments of my life. “Please tell me this isn’t real.”
Julie can't, so we cry together.
Other than my own father, Steve was my biggest childhood hero and confidant. At my birth as the first grandchild of the Norma and Jim Rellihan clan, all seven of Mom’s siblings became new aunts and uncles; Steve was made an uncle when he was just a young boy. It was something Stevie was proud of and professed often.
From as early as I can remember, Uncle Steve would enthusiastically exclaim upon any introduction of me to a stranger or someone new in our midst, “She’s my first niece! I became an uncle at 7 years old when she was born!” always reaching to take my hand or wrap me in his arms.
And that smile! I could live inside his smile. It was more radiant than the sun, and I saw time and again how his smile lit up his own universe. Witnessing such joy made me indescribably happy as a little girl, and throughout my entire life. No one has ever been more excited to see me walk into a room than my Uncle Steve.
I was someone special to a person outside of my own parents (who can’t help but be over the moon at the reality of the first human they've created together). I could feel my specialness to Stevie. I knew I mattered, even if that value was simply from being born first so a beautiful little boy became an uncle. Though my entire family, from Grandpa and Grandma Rellihan to every respective aunt and uncle, doted on me, the first in my generation, there was something special about how Stevie saw me and embraced my existence.
That feeling never waned throughout my life. When I get the news that Uncle Steve has died, my whole world shifts off its axis in an instant.
As I sit on a discarded roll of carpet above the receiving bay of a nondescript storage area, my emotions crashing at the junction of numb and overwhelmed, a wind blows the steel overhead door below and it makes a deafening rattle inside its vertical tracks.
Startled, I look out into the grayness of the early November sky and begin to cry again, my tears now falling at the thought of my Aunt Becky who has lost her soulmate and my four beautiful cousins who have their father. My heart aches as I attempt to hold it together while imagining the devastation they must be experiencing.
Before Julie Ann hangs up, she promises to let me know what the autopsy finds and when she thinks I should get on a plane to come home. I am struck with a homesickness that far outweighs any of those nights as a girl when I would lie wide awake at a friend’s slumber party, wishing I could come up with a reason to go home other than the simple fact that I missed my mom and dad and was somehow worried that something dreadful would happen to them while I was gone.
I tell my little sister how much I love her. I do my best to comfort her as she reminds me of what she said in the funeral procession when our beloved grandmother died only four years earlier, “As big of a blessing as it is to be from such a massive and beautiful family, Née, it means that we will be burying a lot people we dearly love within our lifetime.”
The tears begin to fall again as I think of how surprisingly young my uncle is to have transitioned to his forever resting place.
When I disembark the plane in Kansas City a couple of days later, I realize that I have made this ATX > MCI trip to bury a family member more than a few timesId. My stomach sinks at the thought of what lies ahead in the next few days. Thank God I will be with family.
Aunt Becky asks me to sing the Divine Mercy Chaplet at Steve’s wake. I’m honored to be asked, especially knowing that Steve loved to hear me sing, yet singing at a family member’s wake or funeral requires me to conjure a strength so unlike any other that a part of me dreads the request.
Anyone who’s followed my blog knows that my father taught his kids to offer difficult things up. If you don't know this about him, feel free to come back and read this at a later date. I think one of the only reasons I make it through something as vulnerable as singing at a funeral of someone I dearly love is that I make it an opportunity to “offer it up.”
As Dad taught us, offering up something hard or something you'd simply rather not do by doing it anyway has the same scientific power as prayer. It creates what is needed, like comfort or security, r for the people for whom you are “offering it up.”
That’s a pretty simple formula for me. The fact that my family means more to me than anything in the world makes offering up the difficulty of getting through a song with melodic grace while holding at bay the huge knot of sadness in my throat seem insignificant. The impossible tangled dance within me is my gift to them in a moment when no words or other actions are enough. It’s my way of conveying that they mean more to me than my discomfort. It’s my way, which I learned from my dad, to draw from a universal force that, when backed by enough belief, can work miracles.
As for miracles, my godson Sean Patrick begins praying for one when I decide to add an extra verse to a song that should have the same number of refrains as a rosary has decades, five, but to which I unwittingly to add more.
As I begin to repeat the seventh verse, a silhouette of Aunt Becky appears within my peripheral vision moving like a defensive end about to tackle a running back approaching the end zone.
As I look up, Aunt Beck, with her gentleness, gives me the universal signal for stop, and I am jolted back into my body like a Brahmin priest returning from a transcendental trance. I realize that I have exceeded my verse count, and now understand why Janet, seated next to me, has been awkwardly staring at me for the past six minutes.
I find out later that Sean Patrick was about to throw a missalette at my head if I didn’t stop singing. Aunt Jeanne concurs: “Yeah. That was beautiful, but I think sitting through that once in a lifetime is enough after Née’s extended version.”
As we laugh, I silently think that this faux pas might be the end of my funeral cantoring.
I am wrong. Sadly, I will be singing again only months from now for my little cousin, who will decide that heaven is a better place to be than here.
After our family greets a steady stream of people dressed in Mizzou and Chiefs regalia for four hours, Uncle Steve’s wake ends at 11 PM. People are still winding around the block in the freezing drizzle to pay their respects to my uncle, a legend in our high school both as a student and as a teacher, and a well-respected man in his hometown of Kansas City.
At the reception after Steve’s funeral Mass the next day, Aunt Jolene shares with us a bit of trivia that some of us have never heard, or have forgotten. When reminded, my aunts and uncles break into tearful laughter.
Pointing to one of the many photos of Uncle Steve and our family displayed on Steve’s pictorial wall of remembrance, Jolene tells us why every Rellihan in the photo below is smiling and laughing.
Back row: Uncle Joe, Mom, Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Janice, Aunt Jeanne Front row: Uncle Steve, Aunt Jolene, Uncle John
Mom is pregnant with my sister, Julie (you can see her baby bump if you are looking for it), and my aunt Janice is pregnant with my cousin Kelly. The photo is taken on Sunday, November 13, 1966, my first birthday. Anyone who knows me well knows that I sang the words and a choppy melody of “Happy Birthday” to myself at age 1.
Jolene reminds my mother and my aunts and uncles that they're all laughing in this photo because I, out of nowhere, have stood up and begun to sing Happy Birthday to myself.
The photographer captures the laughter of a family witnessing their first grandchild, first niece, first daughter in one of the many “firsts” that they will experience with her, this one a solo rendition of Happy Birthday that is met with delight. No wonder I love birthdays so much.
After we laugh and they reminisce, my baby brother, Jason, turns to me and says sincerely, "Née, that's my favorite photo of you."
I smile and move to stand beside him as we embrace and take in the other photos of Uncle Steve. On this poignant and solemn day of laying our uncle to rest, this beautiful sentiment from my brother penetrates my heart, and suddenly my favorite photo of my mom’s family takes on even greater meaning; all the beautiful faces of these people I love are happy because of me.
My eyes focus on an 8-year-old little Stevie, and I begin to cry.
I am comforted knowing that my precious uncle now knows fully the depth of my love for him, and for the massive and profoundly connected family he has left behind. I suddenly feel closer to him than ever before.
_____________
Dear Uncle Steve,
I still have hundreds of conversations to have with you about life and love.
I still hear your voice yelling, “Give it everything you’ve got, Née. Now. Now!” as I dig deep to inspire my tired legs to round the final curve of a heated 800-meter race. It was your voice over the deafening cheers of the crowd that pushed me into overdrive, successfully passing my opponents, resulting in a personal best race (even though Sister Mary Vincent DePaul didn’t see it that way).
I’ll never forget the sound of your contagious laughter, which you inherited from Grandpa --a laughter that could shift the energy of a room as fast as an astute contestant on NAME THAT TUNE could name a song at the first note.
I chose the #15 for all my athletic endeavors because it was your number. I always secretly thought that it somehow passed a bit of your athletic prowess and tenacity to me. I wore that number with such incredible pride because of you.
I’ll always refer back to the beautiful letter you wrote to me after I came out to our family, and how reading it was made difficult by the tears that filled my eyes as you expressed how much you love me and how much I matter to the world. I am still filled with extra confidence and acceptance every time I read that letter.
Days, weeks and months after you passed, I would sit in contemplation of something confounding or difficult, and your voice, your face, would flash into my mind and offer me clarity or remind me of the truth about something I was looking at with an inaccurate perspective. Just this week, in a moment when I had the urge to throat-punch a man because he was being unreasonable, I heard your laughter and it diffused the energy, allowing me to say something that profoundly affected the mood and resulted in a conversation that brought great resolve and connection.
I miss you. We buried you on my birthday last year. You know that I love my birthday today with the same enthusiasm I expressed at 1 year old; that enthusiasm memorialized in a photo and on the expressions of ten people I love with all my heart. Despite the sadness of losing you, my birthday is now even more special to me because I share it in remembrance of you.
Just a few days ago, on my birthday, during my morning meditation and as our beautiful family was in Kansas City offering a Mass of Thanksgiving for me and a Mass of Remembrance for you, I envisioned us together, laughing so hard that we were crying.
As real tears cascaded down my cheeks, I smiled, and pictured you smiling back at me. I basked for the rest of my meditation in that space of pure joy with you, as I’ve done in real life hundreds of times since I came into the world and made you an uncle at age 7.
You made everyone feel special, dear uncle. Even though we all knew that our special connection to you wasn’t exclusive, it felt as though it was. That was your superpower.
Though I can’t claim to know exactly what lies ahead in the adventure of my soul after I take my last physical breath, whether heaven be a place or an experience, I believe that whatever awaits me, I’ll reunite with you there and we’ll laugh until we cry tears of unending joy, while you bite your tongue and squeeze me tightly in your arms. In the meantime, I will look forward to your laughter in my head, your subtle nudges when I am trying to make a decision, and your beautiful face smiling back at me during those times when I slow down and connect with the Source Energy that you are now eternally part of, all the while knowing that you are with me always.
”I’ll meet you further on up the road.”
Love,
Jenée