Goodbye Uncle Jack

(L to R - Larry, Jack & Kevin)



Today, while on a 3rd run for the bakery near Atlanta, GA, I got a call from my mother-in-law. Curious. She doesn't call me much when I'm on the the road. In fact, I can really only think of maybe one or two other times.

When my phone rang, I was backing the semi-truck out of a warehouse complex. Luckily, I had my headset hooked up to my phone and so I answered the call.

To make a long story short, Sandra informed me that Jack, Larry's (who is my father-in-law) younger brother by 3 years, passed away this morning.

I was shocked. He was 59. He was doing some work on the coast in South Carolina staying with a friend. When the friend got up to go to work in the morning, he realized that Jack wasn't up and around yet. When he went to try and wake him up, well, he ended up calling the paramedics and not long afterwards was prounounced deceased.

Jack was a man that always had a smile. He loved to tell stories and he was always one who listened, attentively. If you were talking to him, it was like he was taking in every word.

He had a very jovial laugh.

At one point, he signed Doreen and I up in to a MLM program and he and I would talk for hours on the phone trying to encourage us to 'build the business.' Doreen and I eventually washed out of it, but he never treated us any differently after that. He was still the same loving 'uncle Jack.'

This pic of the brothers was taken last March when he stopped by on a trip thru the area, when all our family was visiting. At one point a bunch of music was happening and he was front and center listening, with a very contented smile on his face.

He would have a unique way of taking a look at a subject and would often times have an answer to a question or problem that was 'outside the box' but was very useful.

We're going to miss Uncle Jack.

We're leaving in the morning with Larry, Sandra Grandma and the rest of our clan to head down to the funeral. It's a trip we are looking forward to, yet not.

Doreen was torn whether to go or not. She asked me if Aunt Evie or Jane would pass, would I go? In a heartbeat.

We had LOTS going on this weekend, and I told her if you want to go, we'll get it covered and/or reschedule. That's what we've been doing this evening and now, it's about bed time. Long trip in the morning.

We're going to say 'Goodbye Uncle Jack' for one last time.