He Kept the Music Playing
On April 2nd, I lost my Uncle Jerry, one of the main pillars of my life. He was a snarky old man who loved fiercely, expressing his affection through crude humor and unexpected sincerity. In my younger years, I didn’t know much about Jerry beyond his marriage to my Aunt Carol. It wasn’t until my early twenties that our relationship shifted from distant relatives to kindred spirits, largely because he became the guardian of my creative spark.
I’ve always had a tendency to get hyperfixated on new hobbies, and at that time, my world revolved entirely around music. I bought guitars, scribbled lyrics in every spare moment, and was convinced my sister and I were destined for stardom in our group, Crash & Burn. As fate would have it, Jerry wasn't just an uncle; he was a musician with his very own recording studio, and he opened its doors to my obsession.
Those days were awkward, playing something so creative is very different than writing out all your creativity, but he was just…utterly amazed. I wrote six songs with him before that fixation turned into something else, I don’t know what anymore. But every…single…time I saw him after that he would say “damn I wish you’d get back to writing those songs.”
About a month before he passed he broke his toe, which led to an infection, which led to two toes being amputated. That turned into pneumonia, which led to the icu and then rehab and then icu and intubation. A week before he passed I was able to go see him. My other uncle, Jerry’s younger brother Jeff, watched my kids in the waiting room while I went to go see him. I didn’t get to talk to him much because another friend of his was there, but I promised I would be back the following Tuesday.
And I came that Tuesday and I sat with him and talked to him about silly things. We talked about how his late sister had a cat that jumped out a window on the second floor and we talked about the kids wanting to see him. And he played my songs. He wanted so desperately for me to hear those songs, to remember, to write more.
I had to leave because he was getting tired, but I promised I would be back on Thursday. Wednesday night I wrote a song. I didn’t have a tune, but I had the lyrics. I was going to surprise him, let him know there was something to look forward to when he got out. Thursday morning I got a text from my Aunt Carol. “Robin, how quick can you get here?”
He became unresponsive, and he signed a DNR release. Sometime during the night he lost consciousness, no one was with him. The doctors called Carol in the morning while she was making her breakfast.
Two years before this I watched my Aunt Janice pass, so when I walked into that room and saw my Uncle Jerry making the death breaths…I knew it was coming. He had a lot of people there who loved him. And just like Jerry always was, he stopped breathing while everyone was talking. He never wanted to make a scene, he never wanted to make anyone sad. He slipped away as quietly as he could.
I know he left this world knowing I loved him, but that doesn’t make the silence he left behind any easier to bear. He spent years encouraging me to find my voice again, acting as the curator of my potential even when I had moved on to other things.
Life is moving fast right now, and it’s often hard to sit still long enough to feel the full weight of this loss. But as I look at the lyrics I wrote the night before he passed, I realize that he succeeded in his final mission. He kept the music playing in me, and every time I pick up a pen or a guitar, I’m keeping his memory alive, too.
