My Uncle G.

When I was a kid we spent every Sunday at my Nana's house. My dad is one of five kids, the oldest of four boys and one girl. There we were on Sundays with my dad and his three brothers looking like four peas in a pod and my Uncle G who look absolutely nothing like the rest of them. He was big with a face full of hair, not at all like his lanky, clean cut brother in laws that would sooner starve to death than sweat or callus their hands. He was quiet and with his black beard and large stature he was little intimidating to us wee folk that were running around. After all, all the other men looked like they could be our dad. I remember that a lot of the kids were afraid of Uncle G. Which at the time made perfect sense but now it makes me laugh. Not me though, he was never scary to me. He was just my Uncle G and he gave the best hugs of the bunch.

The older we got the more I realized that Uncle G was one of a kind in our family. While the rest of the men were playing basketball or cards, he was grilling the meat or slicing the turkey. There he would be in the kitchen, apron on, hands all a mess, passing out bites of yumminess and working his tail off to provide the rest of us one of the best meals of the year. I remember how curious I was about him. He was so different from the rest of the Slocum men, why did Aunt Pat go for this big, furry, fishin man that loved to eat good food more than anyone I have ever met??

When I was in college I needed somewhere to live. Pat and G lived close to the school and with open arms welcomed me into their home with their two teenagers. They took their office and turned it into a room for me and I lived their for quite a while. It was then I realized why Aunt Pat married G. The man did everything! He cooked, he cleaned, he could buy clothes for anyone in the house including his teenage daughter and I never once heard him raise his voice in anger. He was unlike any man I had ever been around and I remember thinking, "I want to marry a man like this!" That year of my life Pat and G become my second set of parents and Zack and Court became my little brother and sister. They were my family, and I enjoyed all of them all of the time. I would come home from school and it would be just G and I. He would tell me a story about a fishin trip, every detail about the food he cooked or ate, or both. He would stand in that kitchen with a chicken breast and an onion chatting away while making it into the best thing I had eaten all week.

Later in my life I moved back into Pat and G's. I needed somewhere to go and once again they opened their home. It was a hard time in my life and they knew it. They didn't ask many questions. They just let me be there safe, warm and as always fed. Just like parents do for you when life is hard. They loved me and I loved them and was blessed to have them both.

Years passed by and finally I got my act together. Never once losing sight of the kind of man I really wanted to marry. A hardworking man, with a big heart that spoiled his wife rotten. When I was 31 God blessed me with that man. A man that was unlike most that I had met.  A man that can buy me clothes and shoes, that cooks and cleans and yep, that spoils me rotten. A man not all that different from one that I had grown up with.

Together Doc and I have had great conversation and enjoyed amazing food with Pat and G. He has watched as I raise my girls and loved them like they were his own Grand kids while Patty has been working hard to spoil them rotten. We have spent as many Christmas Eve's as we possibly could with G and if you ever been, you know why. If you haven't you have missed a little piece of heaven on earth. This year is our year to go home and be with G and Pat on Christmas Eve. Selfishly in my prayers I say "Jesus, please get him home and well before December 24!" ;)

Today I write with a heavy heart and a plea to my sweet Lord. Asking, all but begging Him to heal my Uncle G. To send him home to Aunt Patty and Court and Rand and Zack. To give him time to take my girls fishin with their "Princess fishin' poles" that Kat dreams about. I am praying that He will make him well so that he can fish with his buddies, cook good food for his friends and watch Tech beat the crap out of UGA this fall in the comfort of the coolest "man room" I have ever seen.

I would ask that you put him on your prayer list. I ask you to please pray for a miracle and for complete healing of his body. That you pray on behalf of my family who has been blessed for over 36 years with the presence of this great man, my sweet, gentle Uncle G that I love bigger than the whole sky!

Thank you friends!

Melanie