Grief doesn't tell time.

We are celebrating Father's Day today.  We went to Toy Story 3 and ate leftover Colo's Pizza from last night - which was what Josh chose to do for the day.  My kids have been blessed with a man who models the 1 Corinthians 13 description of love every day.
Tomorrow we have to go to Maryland  for the viewing and funeral of my uncle who died suddenly on Thursday evening of a heart attack, while he was working in his garden.  I was not very close to him, but my father was and I think that is why it effects me so much.  He and my dad had many similarities and just as many differences, but I think that his death makes me think about when the day will come that I will get the call that it is my father and not my uncle who will not spend another day with me here on earth.  After I got the call, the kids were playing outside and the sun was setting beautifully.  I thought, Cliff will never again sit on his porch and watch the sunset anymore, which is the one thing I remember him doing a lot.
But I think that it is more than that.  With every person who passes away in my life, it is another part of me that is passing away with them - their existence makes up part of my memories and my life.  One day, I will drive past his house and there will be someone else living in  it.  I can tell my kids that my uncle Cliff used to live there, but it really won't mean much to them.  Then one day it will be my parent's house that someone will buy.  They'll remodel the rooms that my dad worked late into the night remodeling before.  And I look at the relationship that my dad and uncle had and see how some of that relationship is echoed in the relationships between my own sisters.  My dad will be 70 on Sunday, which is also Father's Day, and he will spend it in the funeral home.  I remember birthdays in the past that we spent having picnics in our yard and my dad and Cliff argued over who had made a ringer in horseshoes.  I remember when I thought that he would never grow old and now I can no longer deny that he not only has to, he already is.
The older I get, the more I realize that memories seem timeless - like there is a vacuum they're kept in to preserve them.  I commented  in a recent blog post about how the memories of my childhood are categorized  and static and that I didn't really remember that much.  But I think I missed the mark a little.  I think they are categorized and static, but like a chemical reaction,, when a catalyst is added - like a death or life change - it breaks open a whole new storehouse of memories that you forgot you had.  And a person you had little  relationship with yourself can still impact you if a person you love had a deep relationship with them.
And as one of God's creatures, I feel the loss of human life because it makes me see the frailty of humanity in general.