Today is a sad day. And a joyful day. This morning one of the most influential men in my life succumbed to his 6.5 year battle with cancer. My Godfather, my uncle, my friend, Lou Wattigny gave it his all in the fight of his life.
Rewind to December of 2012. I worked that Monday, got home, loaded the car, and we were getting ready for a family vacation to Disney World. Uncle Louie calls to break the news that he has being diagnosed with Stage 4 esophageal cancer. Prognosis, 6 months. Instead of pulling right out the driveway, I spent over an hour processing the news. June of 2013. That’s all the doctors were giving him. I’m not ready for that. He is not ready for that. None of us are.
That brings me to today. From New Orleans, to MD Anderson, to Cancer Centers of America, he never quit fighting. He beat it back time and time again proving that he had a lot more living to do. It’s a miracle really, 6 months to live and he beat that expectation by 13x. Who wouldn’t like a return on investment like that!
Uncle Louie was a story teller. He could do so in a fashion that would leave the entire table laughing so hard their sides hurt. From “No brakes”, to “Get me the Rochester sauce” (Worcestershire steak sauce), to a thousand other stories we had heard hundreds of times each time you heard it you laughed till it hurt. That’s who Uncle Louie was. He loved to have fun, he loved to entertain, he loved to laugh. That is often said about a lot of people when they pass but he fully embodied it.
He took every punch cancer had to dish out and kept coming back for more. I never heard him really complain about it. Yeah, the cough was a pain in the ass but he took it in stride. He didn’t let it dampen his spirit, at least when I spoke to him even when texting was all he could manage. I could tell he was smiling.
So yes, today is very sad. It won’t be the same without him, not by a far stretch. He brought life and laughter wherever he went. I envy that. He is not without faults as we all are but he made so many people happy that it far outweighs the other. It’s a joyful day because he is not in pain. He is no longer burdened with that f*#king cancer. That dreaded disease has taken far to many people I’m close to. As my cousin Scott mentioned, I’m sure he is singing 60’s and 70’s songs with the Lord and telling stories again in Heaven. The table he sits at is a different one, but my Mom is there, as are Root Beer (Grandpa) & Aunt Eve (Grandma) Wattigny, Uncle Axel, and 100 other characters from those stories that made us laugh so hard.
I started writing this blog a while ago at the urging of my close friend, Patrick Fellows, to process and deal with personal struggles. I hadn’t published any of those because they were too raw, too intimate. This one needed to be published because merely a post on Facebook would not do justice to one of my heroes, one of my closest friends, and a person who I always had an extra special bond with. So close was that bond, that after he passed away his wife called to check on me! He always looked out for me and he was even worried about how I would feel about his death. That’s a special kind of love. I hope I live a life worthy of it.
As the day draws to a close I think about the last conversation we had. He joking called me names and I back, but he ended with “I love ya pal”. Love you too Uncle Louie, love you too.