Forgotten About?

Name a person who you have forgotten about until right now? Is one of the 5 prompts that was given to us to write about by MamaKat. So this is the first time that I've decided to bite on one of her prompts and I'm choosing this one because there is someone near and dear to my heart who I never really got to tell how very important he was to me.

This person whom I speak of is my Uncle Terry, who passed away a few years ago due to colon cancer. My Uncle Terry was my father figure when my own father didn't know how to be one. He gave me things to look forward to, showed me happiness in a world of sorrow, and most importantly gave me as an 8 year old girl someone to look 'up' to.

Growing up my parents were alcoholics, they fought all of the time, and from what I remember most days consisted of my Mom kicking me outside and telling me not to come in till dusk. My father worked long hours in the construction field and I don't remember even seeing a whole lot of him, that is, unless he was sitting on the love seat that was pulled in front of our TV so he could watch whatever Baseball, Basketball or Football game that was playing.

One day, my Father never came home from work. My Mom stayed at home, she never really worked a day in her life. We had nowhere to go until Mom called my Grandmother, Nana Holcomb, and she agreed to take us in for a while. It was the day after Halloween 1986 (give or take) and my Uncle Terry showed up at our door with his pickup truck. I remember his truck fondly. It was a Red Ford, that was nothing fancy, and it smelled like a true Fisherman's truck would smell like, FISH! Mom and I packed up whatever we could fit in the truck to make the 2 hour drive to my new home in Belfast, ME.

I never really saw or even heard from my Father for the year or so that I lived here in Belfast. My Uncle Terry made sure that I laughed a little every time he was around me. He took me out in the snowmobile in the winter time. He took me Strawberry picking in the summer. He even would show up at our door once in a while just to see if I wanted to go out for an Ice Cream. Which, by the way, was my absolute favorite thing to do with him. Every time I got into his smelly truck, I smiled a smile that was a least a mile long, and it would stay with me for the entire day.

My Uncle was a lobster fisherman who sold fresh lobster and crab meat right out of his house. I used to love seeing the lobster in the tank, they were the most unusual creatures to me then. He even showed me how to help him pick crabs so the meat could be packaged up and waited to be sold.

Before I started the 4th grade my Mom and I moved back to Portland. She never drove, never even had her driver's license so we didn't get a lot of chances to visit my Uncle after we moved back. Then when he became sick, I was afraid to see him. I don't even know why. I wanted to see him so badly, I wanted to be able to tell him exactly how much he meant to me as a kid who didn't have a Dad (I never really saw my father again until he was sober and I was about 16).

My Uncle Terry passed away before I could even say goodbye. I miss him terribly. He's been gone for years and his death still stings my heart.