Well, I thought I'd written about this, but I suppose I hadn't.
I have a family member down in Florida who is the husband of my grandfather's sister. For quite a few months, he was losing a lot of weight. It wasn't exactly a healthy weight loss; the family apparently knew something was up and took him to the hosptial after a while. The hospital tried to get him into a special hospital, but they said that he just had a virus and wouldn't accept him. So, after being sent home and having some... definite signs, the special hospital HAD to accept him. We then found out that he had cancer in his entire body and there was no way he was going to live. We knew he wouldn't have much longer to live, but we thought he'd last throughout the rest of this year. We were wrong.
I came home from dropping Chris off about 10 minutes ago and my mom told me the news. Apparently, she'd just gotten a call from one of her cousins; Uncle Tom passed away.
I guess I didn't really think much of him before I knew how sick he was. I knew he was racist and all, but I also knew it wasn't entirely his fault; it was how he was raised. I thought from the way I heard my parents talk about him sometimes that he wasn't really a good person. And now, I feel like a stupid judgemental moron for thinking that way.
As it turns out, he was one of the VERY few people that helped my mom and stuck up for her all throughout her childhood and always had so much respect for my grandmother. This means a lot because they were both treated like s**t way back when because they were both Japanese; but that didn't matter to Uncle Tom. To him, they were his family and he'd defend them to the death. And from the day I learned this, to his death tonight, and for the rest of my life... I have tremendous respect for him.
R.I.P. Uncle Tom
 Gundam Pilot 06 · Mon Oct 09, 2006 @ 03:40am · 1 Comments |
