Cheers Uncle Wayne!

Wow – who would’ve thought?!

Exactly one week ago – the real Tom Green aka my uncle Tom lost his battle with cancer.  Here it is a week later, and my great uncle, my mom’s uncle Wayne lost his life after a double bypass that seemed to have worked for a short time, but in the end his heart was too weak to make it through a 24 hour period after surgery.

You know – it’s interesting, as many may or may not know – we’ve been doing many renovations at the cottage, and this isn’t the first renovation or redo at the cottage.  When the cottage was initially bought back in the mid 80s, it wasn’t insulated among many other things.  What’s interesting is while we were working on this renovation – we had asked Tommy who insulated the floor with him down in the tight crawl space – and much to our surprise it was Wayne.

So here we are with these two people gone from our lives here forever.

Now – anyone who knew Wayne will say he was a kind hearted soul.  If he had a beer in his hand – you can be sure if you didn’t – he was definitely offering and more than willing to get one for you, and if you weren’t drinking beer he was getting you something else.

                        

Uncle Wayne was never one for motorized vehicles or tools of any sort.  While he may have never married or had kids of his own – I do know that at different times he looked after just about all his nephews and nieces.  Whether it be buying gifts for them at Christmas, or giving them their first beer(they were all of age of course), or even more simple just playing a game of cards or watching a Sports game on TV – he treated them to the best that he knew and could.

After retiring from Ontario Hydro approximately 15 years ago, he moved back to Pembroke and lived with his brother David and his oldest sister Marie.

While neither David or Marie were his kids or nephews, etc. He did make a claim in the house.  The claim was to be the cook of the house.  Thus finally allowing Marie after years and years of cooking for her sisters, children, etc. was able to receive a break from cooking in the kitchen.

You know – the Bible does teach a few things, but not limited to:

1 – God will write his laws on people’s hearts (Jeremiah 31:33)

2 – To look after widows and orphans (James 1:27)

Whether these are 2 things uncle Wayne ever read or not – it clear that God held up to his promise in Jeremiah 31:33.  Wayne looked after a widows, his oldest sister Marie after moving back home – and while his nephews or nieces may not have been orphans he definitely would look after them if needed.

While everyone may have their different memories of Wayne, we should simply be thankful to have been blessed to have had someone like Wayne in our lives.

For those of you who want Wayne’s Legend to carry on – if there’s one thing he did teach me – was he taught me how to mix Caesars(while I was of age of course).

Cheers uncle Wayne!