An Open Letter to My Nephew

Dear Hunter,

Hi, it’s me. Uncle Mike. I don’t believe I’ve ever written a letter to you before. In fact, I haven’t written a real letter (other than, say, email missives) to anyone in a long, long time. Then again, one could argue that an open letter posted on a blog doesn’t constitute a “real letter” either, because it’s not handwritten, tucked into a little stamped envelope, and sent via snail mail. But I choose to blithely dismiss that argument by pointing to the myriad open letters I see regularly published in newspapers and magazines. I consider those to be real letters. Q.E.D.

But enough with the preliminaries. I’m writing to you Hunter because I want you to know that I love you. And the reason I’m saying that is because, though I’ve always felt big love for my one and only nephew, I’ve done a pretty lousy job over the past few years of actually demonstrating those feelings. In other words, I think I’ve been a pretty crummy uncle. I just haven’t been there for so many, many of your basic growing up boyhood things-and-stuff. Missed baseball games, soccer matches, fencing matches. Chess tournaments. Drum corps stuff, even - how great is that? And I missed almost all of it. Not to mention just hanging out and shooting the breeze, though maybe your mom and dad were secretly relieved that their son’s psyche wasn’t being warped (I prefer the term ‘wisely counseled’) by pronouncements from The World According to Uncle Mike. The reason I haven’t been there for you? Probably just my own selfishness; being wrapped up in my own life, concentrating on my own concerns and those of your Aunt Kim. I’ve always been kind of a curmudgeonly loner, but that doesn’t excuse me from failing to take the time to occasionally hang out with those I love the most. (Not that anyone really wants to hang out with a curmudeonly loner, but we'll ignore that observation for now).

You know about the cancer of course. That’s a part of this. While I fully expect to recover and get back to my “normal” life, there’s no doubt my thought processes have gone through some shifts. As the poet said, once you’ve looked down into the abyss, and were able to step safely back from the precipice, you start to see things a lot clearer. Consider this letter the result of a fleeting moment of clarity.

So then, I guess what I’m saying here is, I plan on being a better uncle. It may take a little time, but no rush, everything will work out in its own way, I’m sure of it. In the meantime, keep being a great guy, and I’ll talk to you later.

With Love and Affection,

Uncle Mike