Families are made of faces. Faces we assume will always be there. People we know are part of us, we of them. Those faces are too often far away, but when we see them up close we know them and own them as ours.
Uncle George was a face I knew from far away. Neither of us could help this distance. He was 18 when I was born. He was starting college then and eventually moving to Oregon; I was getting born and learning how to walk. I do have a few memories of him though, times when we were at Grandma’s or at his home in Manhattan or even once in Oregon. And I remember George’s room at Grandma and Grandpa’s, a room that also belonged to Paul, David, Dale, and Daryle. But George was the big brother and his bed was the special one in the corner — the big bed that I never did get to sleep on until all of the uncles were gone.
My earliest memory of George is watching him play caroms. We were in the living room at Grandma’s house; he was playing against someone and I was looking on. I have a carom board today and when I got it at an auction in an old, dusty box I was thinking of George and watching him at that board so long ago. I can still see his face as he flicked the carom with his thumb — the easy grin and quiet steady nature.
George is my mother’s oldest brother. I always wished to know him better. But I did get to see him every couple of years or so — that was good. On Friday my sister called to say that Uncle George had died after a bout with cancer. All had known he was fighting a rough battle, but this came sooner than expected. Now his face is missing from my family. I miss him. He was a part of me and I of him — he was my Uncle.
"Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face." George can see clearly now. So much that is murky and hard to see in this world — he now sees it. Because now Uncle George has a real face. He is redeemed, the old body made new. He has a face more real than ever possible in this life below.
With this new face he sees Grandma and his Grandparents, my father, and a score of other loved ones. Now he sees clearly, and he sees the ones he loved and lost in his 59 years of life.
I want to see him again someday. When I do I’ll see that crooked grin that I also inherited. And I’ll ask him some more questions about Craftsmanship. He was one of the best and I always loved talking to him. And in a world with no time and no more separation we will get better acquainted, and I might even learn how to do that amazing "arrow-in-a-bottle" brain-teaser he and his Grandpa kept secret.
I last saw George at Grandma’s funeral last December. We visited, shook hands on that last day, looked each other in the eye and said normal goodbyes. How I wish I could see him again. But I’ll have to wait until I get my new face. All the earth groans for that day. Our hearts groan as well with the pain of death – with losing George. But someday we’ll see him again. That is our steadfast hope in Christ, when we once again and forever will see face to face.
Lord, thank you for the hope of heaven we have in Christ. You have taken away the sting of death, but we still feel it so mournfully in times like these. Please be with George’s family — comfort and strengthen them. And we humbly ask that you would keep us close to your side so that we someday will see George again.
As we hope in you, the only Everlasting One, Amen.
(You may sign a guestbook and view George’s obituary here.)