Requiem for Uncle Bob, Part I

When I received word that Bob Combs, my “Uncle Bob,” had died May 19, on his 92nd birthday…a birthday I never remembered, though he never failed to remember mine…I felt nothing, like the song from A Chorus Line.

Bob wasn’t my blood uncle, of course. He became “Uncle” only when, as my parents were leaving for home after visiting me in Los Angeles, where I was sharing a large home in the Hollywood hills with Uncle Bob, my dad gave him the instruction to “look out for Roge,” which Bob took to heart and exercised diligently for nearly 40 years.

I’d met Bob through his roommate, a beautiful young man named Skip who exuded the joy of life from every flawless pore, and both Bob and I were enthralled with him.

I didn’t feel anything when I got the news because I didn’t want to feel anything. I’ve felt the loss of loved ones too often in the past. I did not want to start thinking of him; of our ability to make one another laugh at the most inappropriate times, or our bickering or my frequent irritation with him for being unrelentingly cantankerous. However, he was also one of the most intelligent people I have ever met; it seemed he knew everything and everyone and had read every book ever written. He wasn’t boastful about it: it was simply a fact.

I did not want to think of the house on Tareco Drive, or my parents’ visit, or to be reminded of Skip, who died with incredible bravery only recently after a several years’ long battle with cancer. Uncle Bob had cancer, too…of the larynx. He endured it without a word of complaint for about as long as Skip did. I don’t think it was the cancer that killed Bob: he’d fought it too long and too hard. I think he went when he did because he was simply ready to go.

To think of Uncle Bob would be to think of all the people I associate with him, many of whom I met through him: Jimmy Stone and Ron Crawford and Bill Weed, and Jason Peugh, and John Pitt, and George Little. Reacting to Uncle Bob’s death would inevitably mean I would have to once again feel something for each of them. Uncle Bob’s death dropped a huge boulder into the quiet sea of the past, sending unwelcome waves of memory through my mind and heart.

When Mom moved to L.A. to be near me after Dad died, Uncle Bob took her under his wing and they became fast friends. They would go out to a Marie Callender’s restaurant often for coffee and pie, and to talk and laugh. Uncle Bob bought a Toyota my dad had had at the time of his death, and still had it on the day he died.

How can 40 years of friendship be crammed into one short blog entry? It can’t, of course, so I won’t even try. And even though the next entry will also be about Uncle Bob and his last message to the world, it only underscores how much more there is to say about him.

Uncle Bob is dead, and I’m trying so very hard not to feel anything. It isn’t working.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from UntreedReads.com and Amazon.com; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com. You can find information about Dorien's books at his web site:  www.doriengrey.com: