Uncle Charlie

Uncle Charlie died yesterday.

Growing up, my mom was a serial marryer. When she wasn't getting married or divorce, she dated.

My father was out of the picture and over 1700 miles away since I was three.

Uncle Charlie lived across the alley from my grandparents, where my mother, my little sister and I lived in a little house on the back of the property between marriages and or boyfriends.

Uncle Charlie was more a dad to me than my father or any of the men who came in and out of my mother's life. When we were little, he would take my sister and I, along with his kids out to the A and W Rootbeer stand on the outskirts of town in his Chevy Impala convertible. The joy of drinking a cold root beer from a frosty mug while sitting in the back seat of a convertible on a lovely summer evening has stayed with me all these years.

He gave us many bright and happy moments in our frantic lives that were filled with our mother's drama. I will miss him. The world was a better place because he was in it.