Call from my Uncle

My mom’s brother called me yesterday morning. I was enjoying a slow entry into my day with tea in bed when the phone rang. There have been many, many times over the last 5-years that I simply let calls from my uncle go to voice mail due to the anxiety that welled up while talking with him. It’s not his fault. It’s circumstances. Yesterday I was able, without reservation, to answer the call.

He was very sweet in saying he’d intended to call me on Mother’s Day. My uncle had dementia. He seems to be about a decade, maybe more, behind my mom. And possibly that I’m downstream of direct aftermath of losing my mom, and the intense stress of managing her care, I am able to chat with my uncle without reacting (internally) to the repetitive questions and stories, or his hypochondriac proclivities. I don’t need to know what’s going on with him at a medical level. I’m his niece and all I have to do is love him. I actually enjoyed our chat, and that felt really good.