Life : A Collection of Tragedies x

IT WAS NO SECRET MY UNCLE WAS DYING

     It was no secret that my uncle was dying. We all knew it, and we definitely all saw it. His skin was once so full of life, and now it resembled Elmer's glue. He was so vivacious, before the doctors had to take half of his lung.
I tend to blame him for this, even though I shouldn't. He wasn't aware that with each puff of smoke he was breathing out years of his life. That every deep inhale that set his lungs ablaze, was really burning his life down. He was ignorant to that fact that those little sticks of nicotine and paper were his silent assassin. In a way, I guess you could call it suicide.
     The first thing he lost, besides the half of his lung, was his hair. My aunt cried. Not because of the loss of hair of course, but because she knew that the hair wouldn't be the only thing to go. She knew that the chemotherapy and radiation to treat the remaining cancer cells would take so much more than a few strands of hair. Boy, was she right.
In the following months my uncle lost many things, however, he never for a second lost his smile. That smile that had been through so much. The same smile that was plastered on his face as my mother asked if he could walk her down the isle on her wedding day, being her father disapproved of the man she was about to be bonded in holy matrimony to. The same smile that was on his face before he went into the operating room. The smile that said 'don't worry about me. I'll be fine!' That smile that hid so many lies. His smile was a guise for his pain and suffering, and that was the thing about my uncle. He had such a life of unselfishness; of generosity; of compassion. Such a life of optimism, that even cancer couldn't ruin.
In some ways I even believe that cancer was the thing that pushed my uncle to live; to truly live. To do things for himself every once in a while instead of living his life for others. He stopped worrying about superficial things. He started saying 'I love you' more. He opened his eyes to the world around him and the beauty that is deep within this universe.
It was no secret my uncle was dying. Little did we know he was really living.