Last month in Malaysia, while a few teammates and I sat in Nando’s waiting for our food, we were trying to think of creative ways to dig out new stories from each other. So we set up a crying scale. Ranking from egg-shaped saltshaker to extra spicy hot sauce, what were our hardest and most meaningful cries.
Girls, amiright?
The scale, meant to be an amusing way to get out of each other what makes us cry and why, I realized really represented different key points of reference in my life.
My scale ranked some of my closest friends this year leaving the Race early, a past emotionally abusive relationship, being removed from my position in college on an executive board for reasons I understand but losing my best friend because of it, the last time I took off my catcher’s gear in high school marking the end of my softball career, and being denied from PA school leading to the realization my life was going to be nothing what I had planned it to be.
But past the drink menu representing losing my best friend in college was a large gap before the scale hit the sauce. My scale did not reach that far. I had never cried extra spicy hot sauce level tears, because I didn’t have the grounds to.
The extra spicy hot sauce bottle was the representation of a death of someone close to you.
Then, this past Tuesday I read my sister, Shay’s, Facebook status.
“Please keep my family in your prayers this week. I love you Megan Theresa & Lauren Broderick – we will get through this together.”
I had not been on WiFi for a few days so I had not been able to check my messages. I was not sure when she had posted the status, but I knew what it meant before I even opened my inbox messages to confirm. And the extra spicy hot sauce level tears followed suit.
My Uncle Jack had passed away.
I come from a very large (in number and height) Irish, catholic family. My dad was the first of eight, and the majority of my aunts and uncles had two or more kids their selves. To put it simply, I have a lot more first cousins than a normal family.
But there is nothing normal about my dad’s side of the family. They are the loudest, most loyal, and most loving family I could ever have dreamed to be a part of.
With the exception of my dad and his younger brothers, Bob and Jim, everyone lives within a two hour driving distance of the home they grew up on in New Jersey on Oxford Lane.
My Uncle Jim had passed away before I was born, so I never had the privilege of meeting him. Whenever I asked my dad about him though, he always likened him to Uncle Jack, so I felt like I knew at least a piece of him.
This past week was my squad’s Parent Vision Trip in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I wanted with all of my heart for my dad to be able to meet me on the Race and experience a piece of it with me.
However, if he had been with me like planned, he would not have been home to receive the news. He would not have been able to jump in the car with Uncle Bob and drive up to be with his brothers, sisters, and parents, to say goodbye together.
But I can’t be there for the funeral. I can’t sit with my two cousins who just lost their dad. I can’t hug my family or be hugged by them, when that is really all I need right now. I can’t even regularly check in with them because I do not have access to WiFi. I can do nothing on this side of the world.
So I’ll write this letter and I’ll pray.
I’ll pray because there is no next Christmas to share my stories with him.
I’ll pray because two girls in college should have never lost their dad before he ever got the chance to interrogate their future husbands.
I’ll pray because our earthly bodies are fragile and can betray us when we least expect it.
I’ll pray because I am thankful I have such a loving and devoted family to call mine, and right now they are hurting.
I’ll pray because God knows the reason why when none of this makes sense.
I’ll pray because it is literally all I can do.
Uncle Jack,
You were an incredible man. I always saw an unbelievable amount of loyalty and devotion in you, going above and beyond for those you cared about.
You were a man of your word and stuck to your convictions. You had such love in everything you did, which is why I know how Megan and Lauren turned out to be the amazing and awesome young women they are. You and Aunt Doreen outdid yourselves with them.
I am legitimately sad I will never get to hear the stories of you questioning the boys they will inevitably bring home saying are “the one”, because I know that would have made for some pretty entertaining stories.
Lauren sent me a message back the other day telling me how incredibly proud you were of me, and how you had been following me along this year on all my blogs and adventures. It will bring me to tears every time knowing I will never get to share those stories with you in person.
But it also brings me to tears of joy learning about your investment in all that I was doing on the Race. I can never express to you enough how much that support means to me, knowing you had been with me these crazy past 8 months.
Also, what a testament to the daughters you raised that Lauren would think to give me such comforting words when my intention was to reach out and do that for her.
I will miss hearing your voice next Christmas with that Broderick family New Jersey accent, ragging on my dad for never being able to find his socks. Also, telling any other story of him terrorizing his younger siblings resulting in Grandma inevitably chasing him around the house with her broom.
Being with you and the rest of your siblings helped my dad make more sense to me. You all share so many mannerisms, dad jokes, parenting styles, means of discipline, and instilling of drive and passion in your children. You all set expectations before us, but make us believe we are capable of reaching them, no matter how high they are.
Watching my dad be with you and the rest of his brothers and sisters, I see how much joy it brings him. It creates a space where I have been able to experience both his protective yet playfully teasing older brother and out of control, fun uncle sides. I also glimpse his genuinely true, ridiculously goofy and free self that I can relate to.
Uncle Jack, you helped shape the man I got to call Dad and grow up with. I never got to thank you for that, but I am forever grateful. You leveled him out and helped Grandma when he gave her endless headaches.
I will miss your bear hugs and buckeyes at Christmas. I will miss Megan and Lauren rolling their eyes at something ridiculously dad-like you have said or done. I will miss seeing the way you so genuinely and steadfastly love and support your family. I will miss your stories of growing up with my dad.
I am sorry I was not able to be at your funeral and hug your daughters and wife and to celebrate your life. But thank you for being proud of me and supporting me from afar for the past 24 years.
I know Jesus is embracing you and right behind him you will find Uncle Jim with his arms spread wide. Right where he has been waiting in expectation to welcome you to heaven and to show you your place in it’s version of Oxford Lane.
I love you, Uncle Jack, you will be missed a great deal.
