My uncle, Allen, passed away last Thursday. Theo and I flew home on Friday and spent 5 days in Cleveland with family for the funeral and shiva stuff. My uncle lived with us for pretty much my entire life growing up (about 20 years) and he never married or had a family of his own. It was sad to be there for that reason but it was really great to come together with family to remember him. We learned that he had all of these work friends who really loved and admired him. My sister and I did a eulogy and I wanted to memorialize him here so that I don’t forget.
Allen did not like to be the center of attention, so to honor him we decided to share the important lessons that we learned from him. He didn’t realize he was teaching us then, and we didn’t know we were learning.
#1 You can never have too many TV’s, or radios.
#2 There is no such thing as too many pieces of toast.
#3 It’s important to be generous. He always loaned us his car when our parents wouldn’t (as long as we brought it back with a full tank – using his credit card, of course!). And also his phone line when ours was in use.
#4 Tradition is good. Especially when it’s Geraci’s pizza every Saturday night. I used to steal pepperoni off his leftovers in the fridge.
#5 Very good items can be bought from infomercials.
#6 Sisters make good friends.
#7 Keeping secrets is important. For example, when I had a party with a band in the living room while our parents were out of town, Allen never said a word. When Marci had a party and someone practically lit the carpet on fire, Allen just came downstairs and said, “can you please just keep it down!”
#8 A bedroom is the perfect place for a pinball machine.
#9 Being a good uncle includes letting me watch Saturday Night Live in his room when our parents weren’t home and I’m scared.
#10 Lastly, it’s okay to be a little eccentric, those are the things that make you interesting and unique and will be the good memories that people have of you.
Allen was a very sweet and kind man. He will live on through the memories we all have of him.
This is beautiful that you put this up on you page,,I love you and our days and nights together this past week has been a blessing,