{"id":236,"date":"2011-12-29T00:13:58","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T06:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/?p=236"},"modified":"2011-12-29T00:13:58","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T06:13:58","slug":"stories-of-uncle-gordon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/?p=236","title":{"rendered":"Stories of Uncle Gordon"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are heading to Moosomin, Saskatchewan for a funeral on Friday for Gordon Whelpton.\u00a0 Uncle Gordon passed away suddenly on December 22nd<\/sup>, 2011.\u00a0 And I\u2019m still in a bit of denial.\u00a0 The morning after I found out I woke up hoping that I had misunderstood; hoping that I would feel ridiculous when I was told that he hadn\u2019t really died.\u00a0 He\u2019d had a heart attack or a lung infection or some other serious but manageable malady.\u00a0 The truth, however, has been confirmed over and over.\u00a0 But until I drive up to the house, knock on the door and he isn\u2019t there to give me a hug and welcome me in I don\u2019t think I can believe it. \u00a0He has always been there.<\/p>\n

Uncle Gordon was a farm neighbor of my parent\u2019s.\u00a0 He was at our house talking to my Dad the day before my Dad was murdered in 1976.\u00a0 Uncle Gordon was there when I learned to speak and I called him Dad.\u00a0 Uncle was there to show me where the chickens liked to hide their eggs around the barn; lifting me up to get them out of the 90 year old crevices in the stone walls.\u00a0 He was there to fight with over who would get the blue cup at dinnertime.<\/p>\n

Nearly every time I saw him we would exchange our stories and memories.\u00a0 They were usually the same but they never got old to us.\u00a0 He would tell me about how he would \u201cfeed me, spank me and put me to bed\u201d.\u00a0 We both knew that Auntie Doris did a lot of the work in taking care of my sister and I, mostly me being the infant, but I loved to let him think it was all him.\u00a0 Another story was when I went out to the barn barefoot, which was a lot, and one particular time when I was 3 or 4 I had stepped in some nasty stuff and he found me just in time before heading to the house for lunch.\u00a0 He knew my Mom would be upset to see what I had gotten into and that Auntie Doris wouldn\u2019t let me in the house so he lifted me up and washed my feet in the rain barrel.\u00a0 And it was our little secret.\u00a0 The third story is when I was just learning to speak and my Mom was bragging and asked me, \u201cWho\u2019s your Honey?\u201d\u00a0 Thinking that I was going to point to her, but instead I pointed to Uncle. \u00a0He was very proud but she apparently hadn\u2019t been very impressed at the mutiny.<\/p>\n

In the winter Uncle would hitch the horses to the hay rack filled with straw and take it out to the pasture to feed the cattle.\u00a0 If we could get up and dressed quick enough and it wasn\u2019t too cold my sister and I would hop onto the hay rack and \u201chelp\u201d feed the cows.\u00a0 We usually couldn\u2019t feel much by the end but it was worth it just to be out with Uncle.<\/p>\n

Apparently my sister and I would race each other to sit in his lap on the black recliner while he watched TV in the evenings.\u00a0 And if whoever won left even for a moment the other was right there to take their place.\u00a0 I do remember a few rare times when we both sat on his lap at the same time.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember those times ending as well.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember being disciplined but I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m blocking something.<\/p>\n

What I do remember is the safe and secure feeling of the farm.\u00a0 Nothing bad could happen there.\u00a0 Then the barn burned down when I was a teenager.\u00a0\u00a0 The news hit me like a stone.\u00a0 It felt like a friend had died.\u00a0 That barn was my sanctuary.\u00a0 I had spent so much time out there and I couldn\u2019t imagine the farm without it.\u00a0 Uncle, Auntie and I talked about the barn burning for the first time this past summer and I was amazed to see the look of pain on both of their faces after all this time.\u00a0 There was an impromptu moment of silence like in remembrance of an old friend.<\/p>\n

These are only a very few of my many stories of Uncle Gordon.\u00a0 He was a quiet, unassuming, generous, hardworking man of God who will never really leave the farm, or our hearts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are heading to Moosomin, Saskatchewan for a funeral on Friday for Gordon Whelpton.\u00a0 Uncle Gordon passed away suddenly on December 22nd, 2011.\u00a0 And I\u2019m still in a bit of denial.\u00a0 The morning after I found out I woke up … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}