Unkie Dale

As you know, my Uncle Dale recently lost his battle with cancer. The last few days of his life really had an impact on me. I was going to put a little excerpt about him in my last blog, but I thought that he deserves a little blog of his own.

There is not a time in my life that I did not know my Uncle Dale. If I recollect the story correctly, I couldn't say Uncle Dale, so I called him Unkie Dale. It stuck with him thorougout my childhood and probably until I moved to Missouri. When I first moved back from Missouri I lived with him and my Aunt Shur-she (apparently I couldn't pronounce Shirley either), for a few months. After a few years I went to work for them in their shoe store. A lot had changed since I moved to Missouri to when I went to work for them. As you know, I LOVE shoes. I think it was growing up around shoes my whole life. So, I was happy with the shoes business. Uncle Dale taught me his trait of dying shoes and it was something I enjoyed too. There were a few things that I had conflict with so I moved on and hung up my shoehorn and dye sticks. Things between me and Uncle Dale were never the same, but I loved him regardless.

In 2000 he suffered a crippling stroke and heart attack, that would change him and the lives of his loved ones forever. As everyone does, I was busy with my life the last several years and didn't see him or Shur-she as regularly as I should have. He still tried to go to the Shoe Store as often as he could to dye shoes or just be around the business he loved so much.

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure how long ago he was diagnosed with lung cancer. I know he fought the battle very hard though. Shur-she drove him to Texarkana everyday for radiation treatments until he got "cancer pneumonia". He was in Baptist Hospital in Little Rock for several weeks. He had his 72nd birthday on Thursday, March 13, 2008 while in the hospital. I went to visit on the following Sunday. I spent several hours with him and my cousin Jim. It was very difficult, but I saw what Shur-she and Jim had been having to deal with for several weeks. Uncle Dale knew who I was, and talked to me some. I left that hospital not knowing how much it had changed me. But I did know that would be the last time I would see him. My uncle Dale passed away the very next day on his favorite holiday, St. Patrick's Day.

Why did that day in Little Rock change me so much? I can't answer that, but it did. It gave me a greater sense of being though. I can't make up for the time I lost with my Uncle. I will always remember the smell of Old Spice, the funny noises he made with his mouth when he would goose us kids, always wanting to look under his toupee, going with him to feed the catfish at the pond and so many other good things. I will never forget him or those memories and I know he is in a wonderful place. Love you Unkie Dale!