I love chuck taylors, you know, the classic canvis Converse all-star shoes bearing the name of 1920's basketball player that made them famous. I am collecting them because I am going to be an uncle, and good uncles wear obnoxious high-top sneakers.
Ever since my mom, in nothing short of happy hysteria, told me my sister was going to have a baby, and that she (my mother) was going to turn my dad's computer study into a baby room, I thought I should be prepared as well. So I asked myself, "what do uncles do?"
I thought about how my uncle John used to amaze me as a kid with his stunt paper-airplanes (I still remember how to make them). I thought about how my uncle Rich, who graciously gave me a job at his furniture store after college, let me take time off for road trips in order to postpone the being an adult thing for awhile, even though I occasionally dropped a night stand or put the wrong desk in someone's car. Growing up I was proud when people would talk about how my uncles Rich and Wes were on the volunteer rescue squad. And I thought my uncle Marty was so cool because he used to preach sermons in neon pink chuck taylors and was in a rock band that breathed fire on stage.
I have some pretty good uncles (and aunts for that matter). Aunt Cheryl was my favorite growing up because she worked at a toy store and got me sweet deals on ninja turtles and M.A.S.K. action figures (Anybody watch the Moblie Armored Strike Kommand animated tv show? It was better than G.I. Joe!). And no other kids my age, but me, had an Ewok (the short furry guys from Starwars) telephone.
She stopped selling toys to become a pastor's wife for thirteen years out in the middle of Indiana nowhere. I spent the last two of those years with Marty and Cheryl duct-tapping church kids to walls, raking nieghbors yards, and talking about the way of Jesus. I saw my aunt and uncle being a Eucharist, a "good gift" to the people of Bryant. And I saw the sacrifice it required.
I will not forget that everyone of my aunts and uncles sent me cash when I went to Sri Lanka to aid in the tsunami relief. And I hope I will remember the letters my grandma would share with me that she recieved from my uncle Wes when he went down to help in New Orleans as a medic, immediately after Katrina.
Some of my favorite memories are those of talking about politics and God with my aunt Nancy in Lubbock at the furniture store. And I knew the West was in my heart after I cried on the plane leaving New Mexico, lamenting the fact that I was going back to the MidWest after visiting my uncle John and aunt Tanya the summer after junior high.
This past winter I sat next to my dying grandfather and watched my Aunt Mel massage his swollen, stiff feet, while singing songs to him in his last weeks. Along with my uncle Pete, she is moving my widowed grandmother into thier home, because people are just not meant to live alone.
As my sister's belly grows and a life miraculously begins inside of her, I am looking to the lives of my amazing aunts and uncles, to see how I might make the life of that child good.
Those will be some big shoes to fill.
