Uncle Love

Yesterday, during a quick lunch break from work, I stood in my mom's bedroom talking with her and my uncle about my wedding, what I needed him to do as he finished walking me down the aisle and the words I needed him to speak in tribute during the ceremony.  He was miles away, speaking over the phone and at the sound of his voice I missed him deeply.  One thing I have always known about him that has helped shape me is the poetic nature of this man.  For me, my wedding wouldn't be reminiscient of me or Mr. without poetic tributes - most specifically from this father figure.

My uncle in his conversation was the reminder that I needed - the reminder of the me I have always been but seemed to lose in the hubbub of planning a new life with a man that I am daily knowing and loving more.  My uncle, like a wise sage, has this ability to orate the world, to give voice to yesterday, now, and tomorrow in his eloquent way.  He means the world to me, and as I heard him give an example of his ability to uplift the world by loving someone through words, I sighed.  The day was better for me in just that instant.  All the stress from the day, all the thoughts regarding my job, dissipated into thin air.

Words do that to me.  His words do that to me, like a daughter hearing her daddy's voice over and above everything else trying to confuse and muddle things.

"I want to read something to you," he said after he'd been given clarity about my wedding day requests.

He had written a superhero vignette about his middle grandson, Jaheim, the 5-year-old dynamo that has a special place in my heart as well.  As he elaborately described this little boy's hidden superhero powers (written because he just did not want to see him ever question his purpose or his esteem on this earth), I felt the invocation to be great as well.  He had written this for him, in language Jaheim would understand - the poetic language of superhero-dom.  My uncle, this boy's PaPa, loved him like my grandfather had once loved me, as special and perfect and wonderful (even when I was none of those things).  Tears welled in my eyes when my uncle's words encircled my mother and I as we listened, voice full of love and inflection in tribute and adoration of this boy, son of his boy.

And then, excitement welled in my heart, as I considered the power of the words he would speak in less than a month as I vowed to be an enduring and committed wife.  I was excited as I thought of how he would invoke that same power as he spoke of my grandfather, my grandmother, Mr.'s grandparents, my godfather in elegy.  I had no doubt that this would be the one day that mattered more than any that had come before.  Not because of a white dress or a tuxedo or flowers or rings, but because my uncle's love for me, for family, for life would frame the day.

And that will be enough for me to make that day complete, God willing.