It’s been one of those days . Where everything has sucked. It has sucked from start to finish and I am not afraid to say it. I have a good friend , she swears I know when something bad is going to happen, a kind of sixth sense if you will. First off let me say , I had to go to the rheumatologist, which is NEVER the way I want my day to begin , or a good start , so I know I was expecting that, but it all went down hill from there. I went, the doctor didn’t listen to a THING I said. She wanted to put me on medication I didn’t need. She wanted to send me to a doctor I don’t have to have. She overrode my every decision. She talked over me. She treated me like a moron. THEN they screwed up my medications. I had to go back. They said they fixed it. They didn’t . I went back again. They FINALLY fixed it. We went to get something to eat . They screwed my order up. I told my mother , “There is something seriously wrong with this day. IT’s IN THE AIR.” I’d been on edge all day. I hadn’t been home 10 minutes when I got the call from my mom that my uncle (one whom I had been very close to) had passed away. It wasn’t necessarily a surprise, he’s been ill a really long time. But it still is painful. He was the only other person who called me Pea, like his Dad, my Poppaw Capps. We gardened together, and just generally what we say here in the South, “Gave each other a bad time.” which is shorthand for “We loved each other.” When I was little he would call the house , and say, “Hey Pea. ” and I would immediately know who it was, and he would talk to me for a bit before he would talk to Momma. We would sit on the back of the old Falcon and eat a cheeseburger from Ms. Jo Couch’s grocery , with me swingin’ my bare feet off the tailgate. He of course would be drinking beer, and smoking, two things he made me PROMISE I would never do , because, “Pea, it’s real bad for you, and you don’t never need to take that up.” I promised, and I never have. I remembered.
My family is partly Native American and my uncle was very dark with very black hair , and when he moved to California he worked in a factory . Of course there are a lot of Hispanics and Latinos there and they just assumed that’s what my uncle was. He was the oldest man working , so they called him Papi or the ‘old man’ and really respected him.
He came back home , ( well, I say home, MY home, anyhow) in 2000 when PopPaw died . Between his health , and mine , we never got a chance to see each other in person again, although we talked.
I know he’s alright now, so I’ll be alright too. But it’s still a sucky day, you know?
Go rest high, Uncle George. I ‘ll see ya’ later. ~ Pea
The Ruby Butterfly 