Born in a time of adventure, when being a Texan – specifically a Texan from Dallas – meant something a bit more than it does today, my great-uncle Paul had real grit. By that, I mean that he was someone who knew more than his fair share of hardship earlier in life than anyone should have to and, through it, grew to be a man of strength and integrity. What little I know of his life reads like a really good old-fashioned novel, the kind we had to read in school that had our imaginations conjuring in vivid detail each moment of our protagonist’s journey. He was a Tom Sawyer with equal parts “Boo” Radley and Atticus Finch thrown in for good measure. Paul was a far better character than any my writer’s brain has yet concocted, but better still, he was real and true and a helluva guy.

                I wish I could tell you at length about his life – charm you with tales of his failures and triumphs – but the truth of the matter is that I never knew him as well as most. That is to say, I knew him as family and as well as someone who grew up a state away could know a great-uncle, I suppose, but there exists in a my heart no small amount of regret that I didn’t know him better. I, like most children, often heard stories he told (or those told about him) but paid them no mind. I am poorer for it, no doubt, but children are children, and I’ve no doubt Paul didn’t mind.

                At his funeral today, I shared a few remembrances, mostly funny asides – the things my mom might have shared had she not arrived at Heaven’s gates before him. I listened to the stories shared by others, memorializing the man he was to each of them. I heard of his strength, his humor and his love for his family. I heard of his faith in Christ as the hope of this hard Earth and his never-ending quest to learn about the world and its history.

                The thing is, Paul was a man who loved people. He was ornery and shocking and took no small amount of joy in pushing your buttons, but he wouldn’t have bothered if he didn’t love you. He was the only man I’ve ever known that could warm your heart with an insult.

                My mother often told me how it had been her rough and tough Uncle Paul that had been the first to shed a tear at her wedding. “He bawled like a baby,” she would say, and I knew it was true. I knew it because that soft, warm heart was always beating beneath every practical joke, every argument with his wife, Jean, that he would draw out like cold molasses just for the hell of it. Every time he scared the fool out of my mother, she felt that love. Every time he inspected my long hair and asked me if my barber had died, I felt it too.

                The world is a little paler today – overtaken a bit by darker clouds. I know grief all too well, and I know her fickle ways. Experience has taught me that the sun will surely shine again and warm us with its light, but I can’t help but feel that it will never be quite as bright – quite as warm – without that lovely man.