to Linda

Linda might be my favorite cousin, oldest daughter of my mother’s brother Jim, who raised many, many children in Arlington. One of them, Linda’s big brother Terry, is in his last stages of a battle with gastric cancer, so I’m going to visit him in Bridgewater, an hour out of Charlottesville, next week. Linda teaches in Arlington and needs to work out plans to visit. We initially swapped e-mails fine, but my latest just won’t go through. She’s seen my blog (and still loves me), so I’m depositing the e-mail right here for her to see. Depending on how much I want to pad my posts, I may or may not remove it later, Here’s what I tried to send her:

Good afternoon, cousin

I spoke and swapped texts with Rick a little bit ago and I think I’m all set to come down and visit you folks.  To hear Rick’s description, Terry doesn’t have much “visit” left in him.  Sad.  But Rick says he seems to be aware of other’s presence, so I do want to see him if he holds on a few more days.  I’d already bought a plane ticket yesterday morning, knowing I could cancel if things weren’t going to work out.  I’m set to land in Charlottesville next Tuesday at noon.  Your injured and currently underemployed younger brother will drive his truck over from Rockingham to pick me up, then put me up in one of his spare rooms, finally taking me back to the airport next morning to head back to Detroit (via Laguardia).

Since making those arrangements, I’ve used my twin tools of Facebook and Instant Checkmate to check out some of your sibs.  Besides you, Terry, and Rick, I’ve managed to check out Tammy, Kelly, and Joe.  Their pics are always populated by children, sometimes a lot.  Where could they have picked that up?

The circumstances drawing us together are very sad, but I’m glad for the chance to get reacquainted regardless.

See you soon

Love 

Bobby

PS. When I talked to Terry a few weeks ago, he said one of his daughters sort of followed in the Slater family business and became a firefighter/EMT.  I’ve come across a wonderful old picture of our very young (but still tall and handsome) grandpa at work, and I’d like to give her a copy.  But I’ve forgotten her name.  I’ll carry it to Terry and he, or his wife, can give it to her.  I have a scan of it I can send you once I’ve downloaded it off the disc.