My Uncles Brian

I have two Uncles Brian, my dad’s brother and my mom’s sister’s husband (with me so far?). They are both dying. Not in the sense of “we’re all dying, day by day.” These guys are dying. They are both in stage four of cancer, the “we’ll just try to keep them comfortable” phase. One has malignant tumors on his spine, the other has them cropping up all over, but the ones that are going to do the deed are those that have sprouted in his lungs.

Whenever I talk to my parents, I get the updates on both of them (one lives in Wisconsin, the other in Florida). And I see it in my parents, their burgeoning realization that their friends, their peers, are dying. My dad, especially, is not dealing well. His brother Brian is his younger brother, and I think somewhere down deep he thinks he has failed to protect his younger brother. I just ache for him. He is not an emotive soul. He buries it down deep, and does his best to appear to be handling it.

As his child, and someone who uses the same techniques, I don't know whether to pierce the shell, or just let him try to find some peace behind it. I have a general rule: I don’t ask. If someone wants to talk, I will listen all night, but I don’t ask. I don’t like to dig into someone’s buried feelings without their permission. Even asking if someone is okay sometimes feels too intrusive. Although upfront and blunt about some things, I’m a pretty deeply private person and I try to respect that in other people. I want to be the one person that doesn’t ask what is wrong, the person who will simply recognize that all is not great, but allow you to exist for a moment in silence, or talk about something else.

But sometimes that feels like the wrong thing. Obviously, this is my dad, and I’m allowed to pry. I’m allowed to dig in there, to tell him up front that I know what is going on and I’m thinking of him. But it’s so counterintuitive for me. It feels awkward to me, and I'm sure to him, since we’re cut from the same cloth. Rusty lines of communication. For years, for most of our lives, my dad, my brother and I have existed with minimal communication, trusting completely in the love and loyalty of the others, so much so that we don’t affirm it very often. Maybe that’s wrong. I don’t know. When I brought it up to my brother, he said, “we know how we feel, we don’t need to say it for it to be there.” Which is exactly how I feel. But I don’t know if it’s right. In fact, I know it’s not right here. But I’m rusty, and I’m sure my dad is too. How do we start to talk again, or for the first time, about death and love and siblings and mortality and health and afterlife and religion. How do you begin?