This Changed My Life

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This Changed My Life

It was nearly two years ago that I was been sent to pick up my uncle and bring him home for Christmas dinner . He lives across town and his car was in the shop . When I arrived he was working on an oil portrait of a friend . He is a professional artist and lives alone . He is not an old man he was 52 at that time , worked out and neither drank nor smoked . He seemed to

be in top physical condition . I used to walk with him three days a week as he strolled through his neighborhood . This area of our town is massive and obviously ancient trees . Pecans are to be found on the sidewalks in the fall of the year and they were a bonus to me as I would stop to gather them then rush to catch up again . My uncle called them little gifts from the tree spirits . In the cool of autumn and winter the odor of wood smoke flavored the air so richly that I could taste it on my tongue . People sat in their front yards and they spoke to us as we passed . His neighborhood is like a big family . Mine is like an armed camp , with sullen neighbors who do not speak other than to tell you to keep off their grass . My uncle 's life changing experience would come to change mine , and make me a better person than I had been

I sat that day and watched as he soaked his brushes and began to clean up his work area in the small studio he maintained in his back yard Since I was a child that studio had been a magic place to me . The odor of linseed oil comingled with the damar varnish evokes vivid memories of a bygone time . The smell is of happy times , of sitting in my favorite uncle 's cozy studio on a bitterly cold day , the gas stove roaring and him working feverishly over some passage in the painting sitting on his massive paint stained oak wood easel . I would savor the hot cocoa , its chocolate flavor strong on my tongue . He made it , he said , for the two of us , though he never touched it . He would sometimes play Christmas music throughout the holiday season and those carols still evoke a memory of that time and place . My uncle 's home seemed enchanted , his neighborhood a kingdom and my uncle the wizard who made the magic happen

He turned off the lights that Christmas day and held the door open for me to depart first . I stepped out onto the grass , still green even in December and turned back toward my uncle . He was lying on his face , his body sprawled awkwardly across the threshold though I did not hear a sound . I thought he must have tripped as he was coming out , but he did not move...