• Larry
Larry was the black sheep of the family, which may be why I liked him so much. I called him the crazy uncle, and even now it doesn’t feel like an insult to say it. Growing up, my extended family was always engaged in some kind of internal battle. Someone was always mad at someone for something, and sometimes they were mad at Larry. Sometimes he deserved it. But through it all, he recognized it for what it was: pointless bickering. And he did his best to get away from it.
Ever the mountain man, Larry loved being outdoors. On occasions where the need to find work or a family event brought him into the city, he spent most of his time complaining about it. The noise, the crowded streets, the suffocating smog. We all needed to get back to nature. The city was full of things that would kill us. Whatever you say, Larry.
As a kid I would often end up staying with my grandparents while Larry was in town, and we would spend the days together while everyone was at work. He would talk about needing to get back to nature. To sleep under the stars. Hell, to see the stars. And he would complain about being misunderstood, and how I shouldn’t always listen to what people tell me. Sometimes people close to me will lie. Even family. For better or worse, he always talked to me like an adult.
Once, when I was maybe ten or eleven, Larry came and stayed with my mom and I. His paranoia of the city coupled with my mom’s anxiety disorder reached a boil one day, with my uncle deciding he couldn’t stay indoors any longer. I found myself in the back yard, helping Larry build a teepee. I’m not really clear on where he found the materials to build a teepee (or even if he wound up sleeping in it), but I very vividly recall thinking to myself, “this isn’t normal. Normal people don’t sleep in teepees in back yards.” That was what made Larry so much fun.
I remember showing him some kind of PDA or smartphone and telling him about the things it could do. It wasn’t just that he didn’t get how it worked, or that he dismissed it out of hand as being bad, but that he genuinely didn’t understand why someone would want that stuff. And I didn’t get why someone would want a sleeping bag that would keep you warm up to thirty degrees below zero. But agreeing with each other was never really the point.
I would later listen to another uncle, Jeff, describe Larry’s reluctance to be in the city. Jeff said it wasn’t about the city itself, but rather the complexities of being part of that system. The credit cards, the banks, the mortgages, the traffic, and the complicated social structures. What Larry was really interested in was simplicity. He was a man who had found peace out in the wild. In retrospect, I see that Larry’s rants weren’t about criticizing our lifestyle; he was trying to share that peace with the people he loved.
Just over a month ago, Larry was diagnosed with cancer. He lived alone on a five-acre plot of land in southern Colorado, nowhere near a modern medical facility. This, along with his pride and his determination to wait it out, meant that the diagnosis came too late. At first we were told months. Then, weeks.
He took the news well. He said that he didn’t want to die, but since he had no choice, he’d just like to be comfortable. For a guy who spent so much time concerned about all of the things that could kill him, I guess he found a strange serenity in knowing, finally, which of those things it would be. He was finally able to bring that peace back into the city with him.
For the man who taught me about firing guns and building teepees, his most important lesson to me was far more profound. Larry taught me how to be my own person. That I didn’t need anyone, especially family, to approve of who I was or how I lived my life. I may not have followed directly in my uncle’s footsteps, but the way I choose to live my life is heavily inspired by his.
Larry was insistent on who he did and did not want to see in his final days. I’m thankful to have been included on that list, and even more so for the opportunity to shake his hand and say goodbye personally.
My crazy, awesome uncle Larry lost his short battle with cancer on Labor Day.