Letters to Uncle Joe (no.1)

It’s been a while Uncle Joe

Eight years and six months since

I got the news that I'd never hear you

Speak in that broken tongue of yours

That had come to mean as much to me

As all the best memories of my far away youth

I've missed you Uncle Joe. Mostly on those nights

When I've been with the bottle too long

Longer than is apt for one as young as me

I miss you too in the daylight, on those awful days

When my errant mind drifts along to the past

To memories of happier times

Teacher misses you too, more than she knows

She's a woman now and a fine one to boot

Her mind has moved to other things. Like it ought to do.

It’s the life we lead, the world we have to live in

The ones we love leave us, and in time we start to forget

Why we loved them to begin with

But you know that already. You knew a lot of things

It’s why I wish you were here, with all my heart and soul

It'll be nice to sit with you again

To talk for hours on end

About the wars you fought and survived

And the battles I'm fighting and losing

I have to tell you the truth Uncle Joe

That I'm getting my ass kicked here

That I lost my way a while ago, and

It's not easy finding the way back

To the dreams I had and shared with you

Out on the marbled porch of the big house

In the east. Same place we met so many years ago

Where through many balmy evenings

We talked and laughed and cried

I was just a boy with a pocketful of dreams

You were one of a kind, the kind that made

Me believe that those dreams were good enough

To get me a place in the world

I'm a man now, but not the man I planned to be

I'm sorry Uncle Joe, for all those promises I made

And have failed to keep so far

Life hasn't happened like I hoped to God it would.

I'm not making excuses. Not to you I won't.

If you'll take the time to write me a note

That helps me remember the boy I was before

And the man I ought to become

I promise you I will try for all my living days

To make it up to you, and to the ones you left behind

If on your evening walks, you chance upon Grandma

Please give her a message from me. Tell her I miss her too

But I miss you more Uncle Joe

I really wish you were here, with all my heart and soul