The Death Of My Uncle

At Thanksgiving of 2007, my Uncle Jim came to visit our family and enjoy the holiday. He had done this every year since I was born and I especially loved when he visited because we always went to the Blank Childrens Hospital's Festival of Trees and Lights in downtown Des Moines on Thanksgiving morning. At this event, we would walk around and look at all of the decorated trees that were sold for money that was used to benefit the sick children at the hospital. 2007 was no exception to this tradition and I spent a few hours down there with my uncle having a great time, but little did I know it would be the last time we did this.

It was the 26Th of November in the year of 2007 and we had just finished Thanksgiving dinner and my Uncle Jim was just about to leave.
"Bye Uncle Jim," I said.
"Bye David," My uncle said.
"See You at Christmas."
"OK see you there too," My Uncle Jim said.
After my Uncle Jim had left life was going good until a couple of weeks later the phone rang.
"David can you please get that," said my Mom.
"Sure Mom," I said. When I answered the phone. I found out that it was my Uncle Jim's friend. When he asked for my dad I knew something was terribly wrong from the sad tone of his voice.
I gave the phone to my dad and let him talk to my uncle's friend. When he was done talking to him he told us the terrible news and began to cry. My uncle had been admitted into the hospital and was fighting advanced Large B Cell Lymphoma that was attacking all of his internal organs. This made me feel the emotion of fear because I did not know what would happen to my uncle. The next morning, my uncle went into full cardiac arrest and due to his heart not beating on its own, his brain was without oxygen for almost 45 minutes. My uncle was alive, but only by a machine. The next day my Dad and my Grandma (Brother and Mom of my uncle) went down to St. Louis to go and see him. He was on life support for about a week until my Dad and my Grandma told the doctors to shut it off because he was declared brain dead. There was a 1% chance that he would have lived but if he would have lived he would have been mentally handicapped and we didn't want him to suffer in pain.
After he died we had his funeral. The really sad part about the funeral was that somebody that we did not know robbed money from the church during his funeral. After the funeral, a couple of days later, my dad went down to my uncle's house and got all of his expensive stuff out during a cold and snowy day. About a year later he went back down there to go get the rest of his stuff. I really, really miss my Uncle Jim. I will never forget him but know he is in a better place that I believe is peacful, pain free and full of happiness. Even though we believe in our faith of heaven, my Grandma refuses to go back to the Festival of Trees because she knows she will cry thinking of her son. I wish this would change for her but respect her decision because I know she is still healing from the death of my Uncle Jim.

David W.