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.
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