Mom wakened me this morning to tell me Morris died. The phone rang on the windowsill. The glass was fogged with condensation.
 
The last time I saw my uncle was at my wedding. The stroke from the previous year had taken the will out of his body. He was in a wheelchair, thin skinned with wide eyes. When he took my hand in his, I noticed how long his nails were. He wore a dark hat and a crisp suit, reminding me of the photograph I saw last winter of Daddy Charlie in the long suit, except Morris’ skin was lighter than my grandfather’s. He was quiet when he shook my hand, called me nephew.The time before this that I saw him last, I cannot recall, perhaps the last family reunion I was at 15, 20 years now past. 
Family is a strange tree. Even when strangers, it’s still family. The leaves are born of the same sap during different winds. I don’t really know my Uncle Morris, only that I move like him. My mother has often marveled over this, over how much like her brother I move, how I stand, how my body leans itself against the air of the world so very much like him. This my mother marvels in disbelief over. I wonder about their childhood. Of theirs and Aunt Diane and Aunt Lynette and Uncle Kevin’s, growing up in different places over different times while still remaining brothers and sisters. What a strange tree family is. What a wide and small river. What dark banks and soft water. What skies hang over all of it. How I carry the gait of a man I barely know, I know not, but it has always fascinated me. As well as my mother’s wonderment over this. The way she smiles in her voice when she says I can’t believe how much you look like Morris sometimes. That I come from the same place she comes from. What a strange large and tiny tree. I wish I knew what your favorite song was. SInce I don’t though, I’ll play this and ask you to meet me in some city on the other side and tell me what it was. To Uncle Morris, my mother’s younger brother, as the earth of this world has enveloped you, may it have been soft and may the next one open itself to you softer still.