I found myself sitting in a chapel thinking about the words on the funeral announcement before me. Johnny was fifty-five years nine months and twenty-six days old when he passed on September 6, 2003; I wondered how old I was at that moment. Twenty-nine and one half hours earlier my alarm sounded. I hit the snooze button, but failed to fall asleep. As I lay eyes closed not sleeping, a video of my Uncle Johnny played in my head. I watched as he used drugs and alcohol--his magic elixir--to avoid the demons that he didn't want to face. I looked on as he took advantage of my mother while she was at her lowest, and I felt nothing for this man who had so ill-used my family all those years ago. That same video played in my head every quiet moment since my mother called to tell me that the cancer had finally taken her brother's life. Her cried-out voice cracked with a sob and twisted my heart in pain. I said all I could say then, "I'm sorry." Once spoken, the words sounded lame; I didn't know what else to add. That sleepless Monday morning I felt heartbroken--saddened by my mother's grief even if I could feel nothing for her brother. My mother needed me, or I needed her, so I decided to get on a plane that afternoon and go to Uncle Johnny's funeral.

The trip to Tennessee was like journeying through a fog of time in a dreamlike state which never seemed to involve the person living in my skin. As I neared my destination, memories crowded my brain, each claiming its own space, wanting my attention, and demanding acknowledgment. From the airport to the funeral home, every mile brought me closer to a whirlpool of time travel, and I found it difficult to pinpoint the year of life that I was living. When I left Dallas, I was thirty-nine. Then I was twenty-six riding in Uncle Jim's pick-up. Suddenly I was sixteen, hanging out with my cousins, swimming in the ice-cold stream near their house. I found myself at eleven, having a slumber party in my Uncle Donald's big rig; then I was three sitting on Uncle George's lap smoking his pipe. Since stepping off the plane, I had been living in a whirlwind of memories. That evening, as we opened the door of the funeral home, I felt my grip on thirty-nine become less tangible.

At the funeral, my mother and I sat together on the hard wooden pew behind most of my aunts and uncles. Nearly all of Johnny's 16 brothers and sisters hid their suffering behind passionless stares--all of them except my mother and Uncle Joe. My mother cried. Like most of her siblings, she rarely expressed emotion, so the visible outpouring of her pain was difficult for me to bear. Uncle Joe sobbed; that Saturday he lost his brother and his best friend in a single moment. I kept thinking about how he cared for John through the cancer, the hospital stays, the pain, and in the last few days, when making funeral arrangements, Joe cared for John through death.

Uncle Joe ached, and I tried to recall the bad things John had done so I could avoid feeling the pain myself; other memories came instead. Memories of a younger Joe and a younger Johnny fluttered through my head. Suddenly I was eight. My grandfather had just passed away; all seventeen of his children were at the funeral, along with husbands, wives, and children. In total, nearly one hundred family members came to say good-bye to Grandpa. It was easy to get lost in the rabble. I don't remember how it happened, but I latched on to Uncle Joe and Uncle Johnny vehemently. They tolerated or adored me; at the time, I didn't care which. I just knew they didn't let me get lost in that ocean of people, and I was grateful for their attention. The three of us went to pick up groceries; we brought back cases of tomatoes, which us kids ate like apples. Sitting at John's funeral, on that hard wooden bench, while the pastor spoke of heaven, I recalled those tomatoes--their savory sweetness filling my mouth. My salivary glands worked overtime as I tried to slurp up the juices before they ran down my chin and arm to fall from my elbow and land soundlessly on the dusty ground below. Joe and Johnny were the most wonderful uncles in the world, perhaps because they bought red ripe tomatoes, or maybe just because they let me hang out with them and not become lost in the horde. At 39 I once again found myself in the crowd of familiar strangers I call family, but fewer of them joined in the grief this time, and I was bigger. Somehow, though, I suddenly felt lost once more, only this time Uncle Joe and Uncle Johnny couldn't help me. Uncle Joe wept, lost in his grief, Uncle Johnny lay silent, lost to this earth, and I sat holding my mother's hand, lost in time.