My Uncle

Ok so this is a bit of a difficult post for me to write but I am going to give this a shot.

The last few nights, I have been up and down playing live, basically breaking even over the last week or so, and being a slight loser online. Burn out is becoming a factor in playing poker for me, and I am taking the rest of the week off to rest and recouperate. Next week is a series of tournaments that I plan on playing in, so I figure it is best to take a bit of time off before. Following that I probably will go back on break, playing once a week in one of the very soft home games around at most, until I go to Vegas in the middle of February. So until then, things might be a bit slow for me.

Now for the harder part of this entry. I just found out that my uncle suffered some type of heart failure while riding his bike the other day, and is probably going to be unable to recover. As I type this, I believe he is being evaluated by a second neurologist but at the moment, things are looking pretty bleak. Im not sure how to feel about this. My experience with death isnt overly extensive, and the people I know who have died are usually not overly close to me, or are older, so in a way I am somewhat more prepared for it.

My uncle had his birthday on Friday, and this all happened on Saturday. Apparently when his heart failed, CPR wasnt adequate to get oxygen to his brain, so as a result, things have turned grim. I cant really articulate how I feel at the moment, partly because I think I am still in shock at all of this, and partly because I simply dont know how I feel.

I tend to be a pretty emotionless person. My highs are never really that high, and my lows are never that low. It takes a lot to move me, and as I go through my mind trying to catagorize where this falls, I simply have no clue. It is a weird and awkward feeling for me to be so in limbo about this. I intelectually understand how sad this is, and how difficult this must be for my aunt and cousin, but emotionally I am just...blank. I know I am sad, cause I feel that much. Do I feel like crying? No...and I feel like I should feel like that.

My uncle was a really healthy guy. He took care of himself, exercised, and such. One of my earliest memories is wrestling with him in my grandpa's house, and to escape some hold he had me in I bit him. He of course got kind of pissed, but he did let go and I had won the day! A lot of my family memories I recall talking to him about how school was going, and partying in college and despite never being super close with him, I can always remember seeing him in the background of my thoughts when my mind drifts to those times. I remember, I was watching an old kung fu movie, and I thought one of the characters looked like him, and when I told him that, he laughed and said it was him. I went through the next 7 years watching and re-watching this movie on my parents' VCR and telling them all the time "That's Uncle Paul!" That movie is a firmly entrenched part of my childhood, making him a large part of it by transference. And it is so weird that this is now happening. I always thought I would have more time to drink beers with him and talk about school, or work, or whatever...

This whole thing has shown me that we never will stay a longer then we are supposed. Its like a switch was flicked and his heart just turned off. What was he thinking? What is it like in those moments as he loses consciousness perhaps thinking he isnt going to see his son go to high school, or graduate college? Even more simple things like seeing a full moon seem so endless, so unlimited, and yet in a single moment they are all taken away. Its just so crazy to me.

I take a lot of my life for granted. I dont take care of myself, and I have a propensity to damage myself. This is just so jarring to me, I wonder if I can continue to live my life as it is. And to change, Im just not sure I know how.