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You're the one who taught me how to knit. You wanted to teach me when I was
15 or 16, but your hands were too shaky. You had a few surgeries since that time
and got better and then taught me when I was 19, over my winter break. I started
a "scarf" that turned into an oddly misshapen blanket, the perfect size for a cat.

(Buddy the big fat cat liked it the most, but his little sister LG and old grumpy
Tommy weren't opposed to laying on it, either.) I eventually graduated to making
actual scarves.

You also helped me cook, the few times I ever have. You were excited to help
me bake the pumpkin cake, since I told you my plan for it the day I came home.

I saw you again three weeks after the fall, at the rehab center. You said "yeah,"
a lot. You looked like you were in a haze. Sometimes you looked at me, but it
seemed more like you were looking through me - Anne had told me about that.

But you knew who I was. You knew my name.
You also insisted that you owned a rabbit-dog and left it back at shock trauma.
Anne asked if you meant Pepsi, our Cocker Spaniel who had to be put to sleep on
my 21 st birthday. You said no, this dog came after Pepsi, and that I "would know
something about that."
The speech therapist came by to ask you questions and test your skills. She
asked you yes or no questions and complete the phrases. You said a nickel is worth
5 cents. But then you said a penny is, too.
"Roses are red," the speech therapist began, "violets are..."
"Red," you said. "Let's try that again," the speech therapist replied. "Roses are
red, violets are ..."
"Red," you said, confident as ever.

A few days before I saw you, the landlord told me and Uncle Web to be gone
by the end of the month. Except he didn't even tell us, he told David and Anne,
in a misguided attempt to soften the blow, I suppose. When I expressed my anger
at him, at the gall of a not-even-30-day notice, the family said I was "just upset."
Maybe I was just upset, but I didn't care if he was Mother Theresa come again - you
can't just kick people out of their home with three weeks' notice.

"He would like you to leave before the end of the month," Daddy said, driving
me back to school after hearing the news, "and people in hell would like a glass of
ice water."

Uncle Web had to move back to Kansas. I sobbed at the airport, hugging him good-
bye, and sobbed during the car ride back. With a laugh, he said the ride down felt
like a ride to a firing squad. He always laughs when he's nervous. At least there's
Skype.

The landlord budged and gave us until the end of February to leave, and I
packed most of my belongings in one day. It took eight hours, but by God, Anne
and I got it done.

I've lived in that house in some way since I was born. You and Uncle Web moved
there a few months before my birth. I stayed there on the weekends until I was
6 and moved to Kansas to live with my mom and Uncle Keith. I moved in with you
and Uncle Web permanently when I was 8. Not long after my move, a construction
team was fixing the sidewalk on our street, and I wrote "Summer - 2002 - age 8"
in the wet cement.