Let Me Give You My Heart
I lost one of my favorite uncles this week. Although it wasn't entirely unexpected, given that he'd been ill for over a month, I don't think I was fully prepared to lose him so young. He wasn't even seventy. At sixty-seven, he could pass for fifty on his worst day. Going through some of his items, stored in my garage ever since we let go of my grandparents' Mississippi Delta home of sixty-plus years—a death of its own, really—I came across this sweet card, probably drawn when he was just a little boy in Catholic school, most likely for his favorite person in all the world: his mama. "I love you! Let me give you my heart," it reads. Coming from my uncle, it's a bit ironic. He was like a porcupine, cute as could be until you got too close. He never married and never had a serious relationship (that I know of). I feel certain he passed holding onto some heartache, but maybe—Lord, hopefully—some memories of a good love too. The writings I found scribbled...