Clarence Conroy Eaton, Jr.
The weekend before last, while attending the Sarasota County Fair, I received a voicemail from my father alerting me to the fact that his half-brother, my uncle, had died. I immediately began checking on flight information but being that it was the beginning of spring break, most flights were booked and the ones that weren’t were far more expensive than my budget allowed. The next morning, after unsuccessfully looking for a flight, I decided we would drive up to Ohio because I also wanted Gwendolyn to come with me. She had met him before and knew that he was an important person to me as I was growing up. Almost immediately after deciding we would make the trip we began our three hour drive back across the Everglades so we could swap out some clothes and grab funeral attire.
We finally started heading out at about four in the afternoon on Sunday; driving through the night. The visitation was to begin at five on Monday with family members arriving at four. After getting in to my mother’s house, grabbing a haircut, a shave, a quick shower and a change of clothes, we made it to the funeral home around 5:30. There were people I hadn’t seen in over twenty years there. They all looked so much smaller and older than I remembered them; of course they would—I was but a child when last I saw them. Even in knowing that, most of them were unrecognizable to me.
And then there was my uncle—the one person in the room I was able to recognize, the one person in the room I would have loved to talk to, the one person in the room who would have had something funny or endearing to say—lying perfectly still. Deathly still. Silent. As I stood there I kept expecting him to wake up—to say something, anything.
On the drive home from the visitation, I talked to Gwendolyn about how we used to stay with him when we were kids. My grandfather lived with him in his later years, so that is where we went. Uncle Butch and Grandpa took us to buy school clothes at the end of summer.
“Your uncle bought school clothes for you?” asked Gwendolyn.
To tell you the truth, I don’t know whether it was my uncle or my grandfather. I suspect it was both of them. At any rate, she found this kind of odd and we talked about it for a little while. The next day, at the funeral, a man I do not know delivered my uncle’s eulogy. If ever there was a way to sum up a person’s life succinctly in just a few short passages, this man did it to perfection. He told everyone how he didn’t know when he met Larry (as his friends called him), that it seemed as if you’d known him all your life. And it did. He explained that he was a chef that could appreciate Bordeaux and foie gras but was just as happy with a cold beer and chili. And he could. He then went on to deliver the line that summed up his being: he just genuinely loved to see people happy. And he did.
After he spoke, I knew that anyone in the room who might not have known my uncle that well now did. I thanked him for his words on the way out and knew that he gave my wife an understanding of the person that I could not the night before.