".....He was a picture of decency and grace, quiet, unassuming, simply a beautiful human being...." That is a rich legacy, if only more of us at least aspired to such a lofty, yet easily in our reach goal.

this meant to you, I hope you have been able to be as kind to others as he was to you and yours...

although we have never met "in real life." I posted a heartbroken post when my niece/goddaughter's little girl was diagnosed with a horrible and invariably fatal form of cancer. He sent me several supportive and helpful private emails over the remaining months of her life, full of empathy as well as insights both from his personal experiences as well as his vast scientific background. He still keeps my little angel in his heart and just recently sent a very kind and thoughtful follow-up email, even though it has been several years now since she passed away. NNadir is amazing!

That was such a sweet gesture on his part, and that it moves you some 50 years later is a testament to him and to you.
Thank you again.

He often visited L.A. when I was a student in the 70s. He always slipped me $100 whenever I saw him "just to help me get by."

My blessed grandmother died thirty-eight years ago, and she is with me in my thoughts and heart every day. Your uncle's benevolence will be with you as well.

I may miss the mark every now and then.

Thanks for sharing. Always good to hear stories about good people.

"We got it covered, keep your worldly worries to a minimum, and just deal with what you're going through right now."

When Dad passed on, we had some smart-cookie relatives who didn't send flowers, they sent food. The whole clan gathered to mourn and celebrate memories and whatnot, and nobody had to worry about making anything, because some catered trays from a relative too distant to attend covered it. Mom didn't have to cook for almost a month.

How lucky you are to carry such memories

If there is a heaven, I hope you get to meet him one day and thank him in person. I'm sure he'd love to see you again.

because he already knew that. He knew it and knew he could ease it somewhat and he did. Wherever we go, if we go anywhere after he is there smiling. You were never too late, he already knew it.

What a wonderful guy he must have been.

They often come when we need them. They are also cathartic making us cry when we should. And it's amazing what does become a memory. While we are so busy trying to MAKE memories the ones that come to us are ones we didn't consciously try to make. Maybe it'll be the way the sunlight came in a window in our childhood bedroom making the dust in the air little sparkles or the way Mom's hands smelled of almonds from her hand cream. But they are what our mind decides we need to recall.

My hat is off to you for weaving the path of caregiver and head of family into one and coming out on the other side. A big thank you to Uncle John, that someone you need on such a demanding path.

From your writings, it appears that many of his positive attributes rubbed off on you. And we’re all benefiting from that.

He made life a bit easier for you way back then, and knowing about him now makes life a bit easier for all of us who who have read or will read this thread.

Thank you for sharing that special memory with us.

And your description fits him to a tee

He was my mother's older brother.
Her mother passed from cancer when she was 8.
Her father wheezed to death from gassing in WW1 when she was 15 and his primary caregiver.
Her brother took her in and took care of my mother. They were very close.
He had a wonderful sense of humor and was very kind and warm to me.
I don't recall anything financial. Just that he was a pillar of caring and support for my mother his whole life.
And she took care of him when he was dying.
He was my favorite uncle.

He was also kind and funny, and I miss him.

When I was 17 and my mom was dying from brain cancer, I was eavesdropping on a conversation between my dad and his sister and her husband, Uncle Bob. Dad was explaining how there was increasing pressure on her brain from fluid buildup, and they could install a shunt to drain the fluid, but it would only be temporary relief, it might give her a few more months, etc. My dad was torn as to what he should do, and Uncle Bob said, "Well, Mike it doesn't matter what you decide, it's going to be the right decision."

That was Unc.

I felt a lot of guilt for certain aspects of her care in agreeing to follow my aunts' decisions on what to say to my mother.

I vowed to never do that again, so when my father was on his death bed I did the exact opposite as to how to approach the subject. I was shocked to feel as much guilt in the second case as in the first.

I learned there that everything one does or says is wrong when you are losing someone you love and therefore, conversely, as your uncle suggested, everything is also right so much as it is informed by love in the face of the impossible.

My mother's death was also from brain cancer. Thus you know what I know.

My mom's side of the family were at odds with my dad the whole time, so I had to deal with all of that stress while trying to accept the inevitable. No fun. Cancer infects the whole family.

They were very close, having raised each other and themselves more or less, as my grandmother died when they were young and my grandfather was an asshole.

Nine of them were still alive when my mother was diagnosed. Uniformly they all refused to accept the diagnosis. This said, they were a huge help to me with the physical demands although they kept focusing on a recovery that wasn't going to happen. They took shifts, trying to give my mother exercises to make her get better, trying to speak to her as if her mind was still working as it once had. (My mother spoke in riddles as her brain failed. She knew she was dying and I knew she was dying but the family rules precluded me from discussing it with her, a source of my personal deep regret. )

They all had religions, basically Christian, but substantially different, everything from Jehovah Witnesses to Catholic with a number of other denominations in between. There were talismans and rosaries and Bibles and pamphlets everywhere, statues of the Virgin Mary, prayer sessions, visiting priests.

I kept telling them there was a diagnosis but they wouldn't listen. (When the end came, some of them thanked me for my efforts to warn them of what was coming.)

All the differences aside, I was and remain extremely grateful for their love and help. It went deeper than my magnificent uncle.

I will say that although I am an atheist, I was shaken when my father, a deeply religious man, began to question his faith. I worried I would lose him too.

The whole thing deformed all of us. I wasn't quite right for many years myself, in fact until I met my future wife, and still, half a century later, as the OP shows, I can still touch the whole thing as if it were just a few minutes ago.

As beautiful as life can be, and sometimes is, it can also be terrible. Overall, I'm glad I overcame my thoughts of suicide, based on what it would have done to my father, but it was a close thing. It took me a long time to understand that life is very much worth living.

The good that came of it is the privilege of remembering my uncle as I have here, and all those other aunts and uncles and cousins who came to help, each in their own way. I was extremely fortunate to have my close and supportive and caring family. They are all gone now, but still I feel their love.