Worthless: My Story

Uncle Joe

This is where all the bad stuff started. My uncle Joe was a great man, a war veteran, a father, and my uncle. I'll just get to the point of when he went to war.

In 1990, he enlisted in the army so he could be a part of the Desert Storm War. His dream was to drive big trucks. He was stationed in Saudi Arabia, and it was pretty tough over there. There was a man stuck in a tank that had blown up, and uncle Joe had to pull his body out of the tank, the man's body was badly burned. His finger even fell off. Yes, his finger.

When he got back, he suffered from a lot of post-traumatic stress, and his wife had been fooling around with other guys, apparently. One of them even happened to be his best friend. He and my aunt got divorced, and he started drinking. He got into fights with my dad and my grandpa, I saw it happen once. My grandma was driving me over to her house and they were all out in our front yard bickering and fists were flying everywhere. My cousin Josh, Joe's son, had blood on his arm, from my uncle Joe.

The drinking got worse. When he tried to stop, he'd have a withdrawal and start shaking really bad. At the time, I was 4. I didn't know what beer or alcohol was, my grandma would always just tell me he was sick and not to bother him.

On April 27, 2005, he died from an aortic aneurysm. My grandma was the one who witnessed it all happen; how he thought he was having a heart attack, passed out on the floor of their tanning shop, and being taken away in an ambulance. They tried CPR so many times on him, but eventually they had to tell her the truth. "There's nothing more we can do."

I remember the visitation for him. Flowers everywhere. His army uniform next to his casket. He looked great, but I couldn't seem to grasp the fact that he was dead. I thought he was just in a really deep sleep and wouldn't wake up for a really long time. I know the truth now, I know not to think like that anymore. I didn't go to his funeral, but I heard stories about how nice it was. The preacher had done a wonderful service for him, some of his army buddies came and did the shoot-off that people do for fallen soldiers. They gave my grandma the big flag that had covered his casket before burial, and folded it up to use as a keepsake.

I was too young, I don't remember much about him. I know that he gave me my own cute little nickname. "Cake." I guess because on my first birthday, when they laid the cake out in front of me, I just took my hands and stuffed it all in my face. He used to call my little brother "Joe's Baby." My grandma still talks about him all the time, and so do my parents, even if it brings tears to their eyes, just to make sure his memory stays alive, even if he isn't.