Friday, November 14, 2008

Uncle Jack

Originally posted 9/2, and the final installment of "from the other blog".


My Grandfather Frank on the Left, and Uncle Jack on the right.

My dad's Uncle Jack died on Friday. In his prime, he was a Merchant Marine working the SF bay. He was 6'8" and 300+ lbs. of solid muscle. Uncle Jack is Irish, as is that side of my family, and his full name was John L. Sullivan. My Great Grandmother named both sons after famous people. My Grandfather's middle name was Xavier, after Xavier Cugat. Today is the Rosary and Viewing, and tomorrow is the funeral. Thursday is the burial, and sometime this week will be the wake. Uncle Jack was the last left of his generation in my family, and now there is only one generation ahead of mine. I am lucky that my folks are still around and young, and relatively healthy. Even though I was not especially close to Uncle Jack, I will miss him. My dad looks like a smaller version of Jack, and has picked up Jack's penchant for jokes. I'll be posting more as time and memory serve, but here is one:

An Irish woman marries young and has 10 children. After the 10th, her husband dies. She marries another Irishman and has 10 more children. She passes away shortly after the 20th child is born. At her grave site, the priest looks down to the graves, and says (in a brogue), "Aye, at least they'll be together now". The husband is enraged, and says, "Oy, now what's that to mean? Surely I gave that woman the last good years of her life!" To which the priest replies, "I'm not talkin' bout her and her first husband, I was talking about her legs."

I miss you Uncle Jack.

1 comment:

Maureen Lawlor said...

And yet another thing I find we have in common is an Uncle John Sullivan.

My Uncle John was a farmer, and also a pretty funny guy. He taught his large black dog how to say the word "hamburger" in exchange for meatballs. Sure, it sounded like Scooby-Doo, but the dog really said it.

Anyway, my condolences to your family.