The Freedom Suite

My uncle Nelson passed away last night, after a long, long battle with respiratory problems that have plagued him throughout his adult life. My mother's youngest sibling was the jokester of the family, always laughing, always going the extra mile for a pratfall or laff, and was always chuckling himself, with a distinctive chortle that I can still hear in my head whenever I think about him. I was very close to him as a child and young teen, until he moved to North Carolina and it grew more difficult to see him except once a year, if that. Acute bronchitis brought on by complications due to exposure to agent orange when he was serving in Vietnam (not to mention coming down with malaria as well) he had a lung transplant nearly ten years ago and has been in and out of the hospital regularly ever since, struggling with every breath. Last night he took his last. He was sixty-one. R.I.P. Uncle Nelson.

What's frustrating is that now that I'm part time again I can't afford to take Saturday off for his funeral. Funny how the very reason I was made full time in the first place was because my former boss felt sorry for me as I couldn't afford to take time off when my grandmother died two years ago. Would it be considered gauche of me to use my uncle to prey on my current administration's sympathies in order to regain my previous status? Heck, I guess it couldn't hurt.