Uncle Tim

This morning I rolled out of bed, slipped on my beat-up sneakers that I now designate as work sneakers, and walked swiftly to work. I arrived four minutes late and out-of-breath. This practice has become ritual.

Some time between when I left for work and when I returned at noon, my Uncle Tim died. I know the word “died” sounds morbid but, as journalists like to say, it is factual and unbiased. It isn’t as flowery as “passed away” or “lost his life.” My Uncle Tim died. That’s what he did.

I’m not mad at him for dying. He was in his seventies, with more than a few white hairs and legacies. He leaves behind his wife, three children, and three grandchildren.

In my 21 years of knowing him, I don’t remember Uncle Tim ever being upset. Actually, I remember him being upset only once. One Fourth of July in Cape Cod, my Uncle Paul made it his mission to throw every single person at the party in the pool. He enlisted his friends to find my Uncle Tim hiding in the basement and carried him up the stairs. They tossed him right into the beer-stained pool — phone, wallet and all — despite the irritated expression that coated his face.

That’s not the Uncle Tim I usually see.

I see him playing trucks with his grandson on his living room floor, grinning ear-to-ear. He is floating in the Myrtle Beach ocean with his swim shirt on. He is going on a bike ride along the cul-de-sacs of Cape Cod. He is sitting in his saggy beach chair, toes in the water in Newport. The Uncle Tim I remember is always by the sea.

Uncle Tim is the calmest of seas and the brightest of sunshines. He stands over six feet tall and he has been bald with white sideburns since I can remember, but based on the old photos at the house he shares with my Aunt Wanda, he had a full head of hair and a mustache on his wedding day.

Uncle Tim is an enigma. He has the most stories shared about him out of any member of the Wessman family, and he isn’t even a Wessman by blood.

There’s the time Aunt Wanda asked him to run to the store to get eggs and he decided to bike. Little did Uncle Tim know that the eggs would fall off his bike, their guts spilled all over the pavement like a suburban front door after middle school boys pay a visit.

Mosquito Patrol Tim is my favorite Uncle Tim. On a big Wessman family vacation, the kids were complaining about mosquitos at night. Uncle Tim fashioned a hat out of a pasta strainer and declared himself the Mosquito Patrol.

Uncle Tim is the best worst dancer I have seen in my entire life. At every family wedding or Fourth of July party, I’d hear the buzz. “Do you think Tim and Buff are going to perform their dance tonight?” The answer was always yes. Uncle Tim and Aunt Buff shimmied and grooved to the rhythm of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” as everyone laughed with them, but never at them.

Uncle Tim is one of those classic uncles, the kind you see in dumb ‘80s comedies. He is kooky, but his kookiness is anchored by his massive heart. He commands the attention of every room he enters. He marches to the beat of his own ‘80s pop-infused drum.

As I laugh today thinking about all my memories, I am laughing with you, Uncle Tim.