The Guncle

by Steven Rowley

“Our friendship began in darkness,” he repeated, remembering the stairwell. “But your mother? She was always my light.”

the younger brother suddenly older, as if he’d passed through some weird vortex and aged a decade in the however many years it had been since he’d seen him last.

he reasoned she was no longer his and hadn’t been in years. Every moment he spent at her side stole a moment from Greg or the kids.

Connecticut only gets like eleven days of sun a year and I’m solar-powered.

“‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.’ Oscar Wilde.”

He recognized their grief, how untethered they were from the life they had known.

Sara was very much there, in Maisie’s expressions, or Grant’s stoicism. He’d never had any interest in children himself but suddenly recognized some small appeal; Sara had found a way to live beyond death.

“She’s half of you and you’re half of her.”

Everyone assumed fame had changed him. And, to some extent, it had. It gave him the confidence to call out hypocrisy where he saw it. He came home, no one came to see him. After a while he began to wonder: What was the point?

It’s not the tragedies that kill us; it’s the messes.’ Dorothy Parker.”

How marvelous, I thought. We were having this strangely beautiful moment, and she wanted to know if the wind was hurting the chickens.”

“I just remember thinking, children’s souls are so gentle.

“it sounds pretty profound. For instance, what was the last day you were a child?”

“Wouldn’t it be nice to go back, though? To relive that day? One last perfect day of feeling completely safe. Creative. Free.”

“Who says your last day as a child was carefree?” “Because if it wasn’t you’d already be partially grown up.”

But that’s, you know, just the way of the world. You meet someone and you spend all your time with them and see less and less of your friends.

What do we say in this house? Boys can do girl things and girls can do boy things. That’s not even a Guncle Rule, there shouldn’t even be boy things and girl things to begin with. People should just do what they want.”

“Why people are so afraid, especially of other people who are different. Hate. I don’t understand why there’s so much hate in the world, but I guess that ties in with fear.

Live your life to the fullest every single day, because every day is a gift. That’s why people die. To teach us the importance of living.”

“Life is a very precious gift,”

We’re hyper-connected, but at the same time desperately lonely.

we’re also numb, scrolling and scrolling past images we don’t even take the time to recognize, or form a cognizant thought about what they’re saying.

The cult of self-expression. Everyone wants to put everything out there and the truth is no one cares! No one cares.

I’m an actor, okay? I understand the need to perform, I really do. But now everybody is performing. That’s what vlogging is. Performance. Everyone is performing everything all the time for everyone and there’s no reason for it.

He gave each of their hands a squeeze, how small and fragile and warm they felt in his own. How big and strong he felt in comparison. For a rare moment he liked who he was. He liked who he was with them.

“It’s nice, the stars. They make me feel unimportant. In a good way. Like my problems don’t matter. They’re not problems. I’m not anything. Just insignificant bits of star dust.”

“People who love each other fight. The opposite of love isn’t anger. It’s indifference. When people stop fighting, that’s when you should be worried.”

Books should be an experience, he thought, not a trophy for having read them.

I’m adrift in black space like an untethered astronaut, each star I float past a shining memory reminding me that I don’t live that life anymore.

“Normal is a terrible thing to aspire to,” Patrick had said. “Aim higher.”

Every parent has these days. You’re very good with them. Your breakfast is on us.

“I wish you total freedom from pain. Freedom from the body that failed you. I hope that you’re full of light, unconstrained, and that you can dance. Because I know how you loved to dance.”

“Grant. You are my funny boy. My wish for you is that your sense of humor remains intact. Life is not always funny, in fact it’s not always fun. A lot of the time it downright sucks. But your humor will guide you, it will protect you, and it will heal you. So laugh hard, laugh loud, and make others do the same.”

“You are sensitive and kind and brave, just like your mother. My wish for you is that you carry the best of her inside you and build on that with all the special ingredients that make you, distinctly, beautifully you.”

Gay people have a sad history, but most of us, we overcome it. We’re kicked out of our small-town families, then embrace cities and make new families and build brilliant lives. We were beaten, and so we became strong, and now our bodies are envied. A generation wiped out by a virus, but our lives are still a celebration—we made frosé a thing, for god’s sake. We’re discriminated against, we become a political power. That sort of thing. We thrive, all of us.

“Trying to say how much your mom loved you is like trying to describe the size of the universe. It can’t be quantified. Can’t be done. I’ll bet she finds a million ways to say hello. Your eyes just have to be open to seeing them.”

Perhaps he’d accomplished something after all. With them. Alongside them. For them. For him, even.

“Grief orbits the heart. Some days the circle is greater. Those are the good days. You have room to move and dance and breathe. Some days the circle is tighter. Those are the hard ones.”

Guncle Rule sweet sixteen: I want you to really live. To live is the rarest of things. Most people merely exist.”

Their friendship began in darkness. In the pitch-black of a stairwell that led to a roof. And now so did his relationship with her kids, although their darkness was very different. But they, too, had become his light.

Final Guncle Rule. There are two tragedies in life: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting it.