Jim Wacker
I don't write stuff of consequence very often, let alone here. Bear with me.
My Uncle Jim is dying of lung cancer.
If you'd ever met my uncle you'd know why I'm breaking my moratorium on using this space as a place to express anything that's truly important to me. Uncle Jim was a football coach his whole life, until the last 10 years or so, when he's been a radio color commentator and an athletic director. He won national titles at the NAIA and NCAA Division II level.
None of that says anything about him.
"He's a football coach" comes the closest, but there are too many tough-guy chew-em-up-and-spit-em-out-cuz-itll-make-em-stronger football coaches out there for it to really mean anything. It lets you imagine his raspy booming voice after years of yelling across football fields, though, and that's a start.
He was a football coach, which means he knew thousands of young men who played a brutal, tough game that doesn't often bring out the best in people. I think playing for him, though, might have. If any of those kids on his teams learned, in their three or four or howevermany years of playing for him half of what I did having been around him--they're truly blessed. And I've been in his company for maybe a month, total, in my life.
Those of you who know me well know that I'm not a religious person. I'm spiritual, yes, but I don't like organized religion, really. Jim went to church every Sunday, and somehow I wonder if that wasn't part of his trick. I learned today that he prayed with his assistant coaches once a week, talked with them about their families, their faith. To use a trite phrase, he had his priorities in order. He once joked to me that he told his sons to marry good German Lutheran girls...and that he got two Catholics and a Baptist. And then he laughed. He always laughed. I can't remember seeing him without a smile on his face. Even in losing football games, he was angry, but there was a rueful look on his face. He knew he was blessed. He got to coach football.
I started this off by saying you had to meet him. I'm starting to think maybe you really did have to meet him to understand. I can't imagine him hating anyone. I can't imagine him not loving you. He might not understand my friends lifestyles or why they did something but he had that midwestern sensibility about him...that "Well, ok, that works for you? OK, then!" sort of thing. He'd say it about like that, too, with the exclamation point at the end. He's the only person I know who ends every single spoken sentence with an exclamation point. And then he'd talk about something you and he agreed on, to remind you and himself and anyone around about the common ground we all share. "I tellya--what a day, huh? Idn't this great? So good to see you."
I don't know why the Almighty needs him now. I don't know why why I'm not angrier about it--maybe when he's actually gone (they say sometime in the next month or so) I'll be angry and mad, but for now, I'm just sad. I'm sad I won't get to hear his laugh, won't get to laugh at him explaining how to take good videotape (though lord knows, he took an awful lot of bad videos of sunsets). I'm sad that I won't get to shake his callused hand and have him pull me into a big hug that somehow manages to make me feel small. I'm sad that he couldn't meet more people, show them how to live. I'm sad that the joy he walked through life with--even when stuck in difficult times--can't be seen by more people.
I love you, Uncle Jim.
The world will be emptier without you, but I'll give you a call tomorrow to chat, see how you're doing, and draw a little bit more of your wisdom to carry with me through my life.