Moose in the Kitchen

My impression of my uncle is that he was a burly sort of man with a bushy beard. I don’t know for sure, because the last time I saw him I weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 pounds. Verifiable fact: he rode a motorcycle and was quite proficient with the crochet needles. He crocheted a blanket for me when I was born, tossed it over his leather clad shoulder, and roared off on his motorcycle to deliver it.

I passed a motorcycle accident on the way to work yesterday morning. This one looked bad. Three fire trucks, one ambulance, and a large crowd. I kept walking, as I usually do. I don’t want to stand around, getting in the way of people who can actually help, but it seems disrespectful somehow. To keep walking like nothing happened, like someone isn’t lying there dead, dying, or badly hurt. Walking around the city, you see a lot of accidents. Pedestrians hit on Market Street, a woman who got knocked off her scooter at an intersection, cars mangled by other cars.

I always think of my uncle when I pass a motorcycle accident. He was killed on his motorcycle by a drunk driver when I was a few months old, so I have no stories of him aside from his aptitude for crocheting and the understanding that he was a gentle sort of person. I don’t know exactly how old he was when he was killed but I think he was younger than I am now. Which means he’s been dead for longer than he was alive.

But, in some small way, you’re still alive as long as someone remembers you. I don’t have any tangible memories of Uncle George; I don’t know what he liked to read or what he saw when he opened his refrigerator door. But when I think of him, I think of a picture that still hangs on my mom’s wall. George is sitting on a log in the woods next to a small fire, holding a plate of pancakes and smiling at the person holding the camera.