It Happens

            My Uncle Jack died on Valentine’s Day of the year the Mayan calendar finished. The news was spread through three social networking sites by the tech-savvy cousins of my generation. The information island-hopped around from Hong Kong to Indonesia and Japan and then flew over the Pacific where it jolted my iPhone in the middle of my fourth block microeconomics class.

            From the excerpts of information I saw on my screen, I made the correct assumption. Jack had finally succumbed to cancer, organ failure, and the shortcomings of Chinese medicinal herbs. The short-run supply curves I’d been drawing suddenly turned into metaphorical graphs of life. Marginal product increased at a decreasing rate, collided with average product, and then plummeted back to the axis. So it was with life. Everything is going well until it goes bad.

            I didn’t really feel any sense of loss. My mother’s father died two years prior, and I haven’t cried for him yet either. I know I probably won’t until I go back to Hong Kong and see that my grandfather isn’t sitting on the couch in front of that old television set, wearing blue and white pajamas, coughing mucus into a can, and smoking until the air is around him is blue. Just the same, I probably won’t cry for Jack until I feel his absence.

            On the bus ride home I tried to remember him. He’d visited last summer but most of his time was spent sitting at the round table in the kitchen while my family walked back and forth past him. He was sick then too and only ate ramen, things that were green and leafy, and steamed apples. I remember how he shuffled hunched over to get anywhere, just like you might imagine any Chinese person who is old. The patch of skin on his neck that came from some other part of his body, left over from a previous surgery, was awkward and puffy.  His face and arms were so freckled with livers spots that you almost couldn’t tell how sickly the color of his skin looked.

            But still, he didn’t look sick. He didn’t act sick. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut like a schoolboy’s like it always has been. His cheeks were still round and boyish, even if they’d lost some of their rosiness. His glasses were still a little goofy and made me think of cartoon turtles. When he smiled (and he smiled a lot), he looked young and happy. He didn’t look sick at all.

            I also remember something from a time I visited Hong Kong. I must have been eight or nine or ten. My mom, brother and I had made a daytrip out to Causeway Bay, an industrial and busy part of Hong Kong that Uncle Jack and Aunt Sindy lived across. We took a ferry and when we reached the other side, they were there to meet us and walk us back to their apartment. My mom and Sindy gravitated toward each other to catch up, with my little brother clutching to my mom’s leg in this new place of tall buildings and too many people. Jack and I walked together as he pointed out landmarks.

            He had a British accent because he learned English that way. He knew English better than most of my relatives and that was one of the reasons I liked him best. Communication is a vital prerequisite for friendship.

            I don’t know why this memory stands out. It isn’t particularly significant or anything. I remember how my mom and Sindy were up ahead because when they talk fast, like they usually do, they walk fast too. Jack and I had gotten stuck at a crosswalk, waiting for the little red man to change into a green man.

            “It’s shit,” Jack said, pointing at the ground.

            My eyes bugged open. He used a bad word, and with my mom right there.  

            He motioned again to make sure I understood. “Bird shit,” he announced happily. “Pigeon shit.”

            Indeed it was. All over the sidewalk, little splotches of white bird poop. I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything, but when the red man turned into a green man, he marched across the crosswalk singing “shit, shit, shit.”

            As we drew nearer to my mom, I tried to make him stop. “Shh!” I pleaded. “Shhhh!”

            But I guess Jack must have thought I was trying to repeat him because he only laughed. “Shhhhhit!”

            That’s it. That’s the memory. It was what I was thinking of when I walked in the door after trudging back from the bus stop. My mom was leaning over the sink with her hair covering her face. She gave me the news I already knew and went back to staring at empty dishes and a dripping faucet.

            There was a bag on the counter for me, full of chocolate, for Valentine’s Day. “Shit, shit, shit,” said Jack, in my head. That made me think of Forrest Gump – you know, how life is a box of chocolate and all that, and then that scene when he’s running and he comes up with the phrase, “Shit happens.” I smiled, caught myself, and turned around before my mom saw.

            The funeral is at the end of March. They can wait a month since ashes don’t really have an expiration date. I won’t be there – I’ll be in Disney World for Spring Break. This is my last year with the family, and I can’t think of a better way to spend it than getting autographs from Mickey and the gang with my little siblings. Rest in peace, Jack, and I’ll make sure to share some smiles in your honor.