I’m sitting here with the rain pounding the windows. The clouds rolled in, dark and ominous. When the rain finally broke free, it was like a release and the darkness subsided, giving way to the usual dingy gray that accompanies a spring rainstorm.

As I sit here, waiting for questions regarding work to be answered, I can’t help but think of my Uncle Jim Deasey. Jim has been diagnosed with cancer. A word no one wants to hear. It’s a word that has weight and a sense of doom attached to it. No matter the outcome, since people these days can come out with minimal scars, cancer leaves scars that can’t be seen.

We don’t yet know the prognosis. He’ll be going through more tests, getting second opinions and generally putting all his hopes in the hands of strangers.

I remember this. I remember all of this so clearly.

Perhaps this is hitting me harder than it may hit my other siblings (except one). Maybe it’s my perspective. But, knowing that Uncle Jim is ill gives me this feeling of helplessness.

After my dad died, most of us wondered what we’d do. Of course my mom had to figure out how to raise seven kids (one was married and living on his own), get kids through college and on and on. Most of my brothers and sisters were in high school and college. They were beginning to forge their own lives and discover themselves.

Then there was my brother Bob and me. We’d all been hit hard by Dad’s death but, to the two of us, we had yet to discover that the mythical hero we called Dad was human. To us he could still leap buildings in a single bound. He was the man who was a Cowboy Soldier and could beat Tarzan in a swimming race through a river infested with crocodiles.

Imagine someone told you there was the most amazing sight behind a really tall fence. They give you a ladder and you climb up and get a glimpse of some of the most amazing things you’ve ever seen. You can’t describe them, you don’t understand them. Just as you are about to ask about them the ladder is kicked out from beneath you and you tumble to the ground.

That’s how it felt to me to lose Dad. Except it wasn’t a ladder I was perched on. I was sitting on his shoulders. Now I’d have to figure out another way to learn about all those things.

The summers after Dad died, we spent on vacation with Uncle Jim, his wife Trudy, who was my Dad’s sister and my Mom’s best friend, and some of their kids. We went to this little trailer park in the Ozarks off Table Rock Lake called Lazy Lee’s. It was magical. Green fields, pools, shimmering lakes and a clubhouse with a rickety player piano. Tradition stated that I fall in the lake at least once a trip. I never missed that tradition.

Uncle Jim taught me how to fish with a real fishing pole. Not the bamboo-training pole I had been using. He was patient as I sat bleary-eyed in the boat, trying to ignore the early morning sun. He never complained that I was terrified of worms and baited my hook for me. Jim, Bob and I would sit and that boat and wait for the fish to bite.

Once I caught a Bluegill. Probably the only worthwhile fish I had ever caught. But, it was small. Way too small. Jim explained that we couldn’t possibly eat the fish I had caught and that we should let the little guy go back to his family. So we released it from the boat dock. Then he taught me how to clean the other fish we’d caught.

Later that night, my brother Bob ate fish. He hates fish. They told him it was chicken. He still hates fish.

I learned the delights of toasting marshmallows over the orange-blue glow of a gas stove with my cousin Trina. We’d laugh and giggle and act like fools.

We’d spend the days going fishing, swimming, or at an amusement park. Once, while Bob was riding the classic Fire in the Hole, the braking system broke down. He waved as he passed us, getting an extra ride. I thought he was going to die in a fiery wreck of coaster cars and themed props. He didn’t.

In the evenings we’d go to dinner shows, hillbilly shows or the old Shepard of the Hills show. Once, Bob got to help put the fire in the barn out. That was a true honor.

Other nights, we’d sit outside in lawn chairs enjoying the crisp summer nights. The adults would “look for ‘em.” We didn’t know what that meant. “You’ll know when you see one.” I was twenty before I figured out what they were talking about. I never got the chance to properly look for ‘em with the gang.

One year my mom went to visit Trudy and Jim in Chicago. Our dog Freckles had died at the ripe age of 16. Mom came home with an extra carry-on. It was a little beagle/pointer mix puppy. Trudy and Jim couldn’t fathom “the boys” not having a dog. Their neighbor’s dog had recently had puppies. They made Mom bring one home. We named him TJ, after his surrogate parents. TJ was with us until he died twelve years later. I don’t want to brag, but he was the best dog that ever lived.

Years later, Trudy and Jim bought a lake house in northern Illinois. We spent several summers with them up there as well. This time we were older. Bob was in college. I was a brooding, lonely pre-teen obsessed with Van Halen. But Uncle Jim still had that mythical quality of a rugged teacher. He still took us out on the boat to fish. He taught me to water ski. He let me sharpen anything made of metal with his sharpening wheel in the garage. I loved sitting in the front seat of his car and watching the dashboard compass tell us which direction we were heading.

These summers, Bob was able to look for ‘em with Jim. I thought I saw one that year, but wasn’t sure. Trudy and Jim took us to a brewery for a tour (it smelled), introduced me to all you can eat cottage potatoes and what life was like in the smallest town I’ve ever seen, Durand, Illinois. It has a town square, which is, literally, a square. That’s it. They were having a lockjaw epidemic one particular summer.

We visited the homes of their friends. We biked around the lake. We wandered around and just did “stuff.” Never once, in any of these summers, was I bored.

When my Mom was sick, she had already lost her husband, Trudy had passed on . . . but Jim was eternal. As soon as he heard she was ill, he and his new wife Estelle were in a car and in St. Louis immediately to be by her side. Though nothing particular was ever said between us, his strong hand squeezing my shoulder was the comfort I needed.

My mom went to visit them that summer . . . her last summer. Though she was sick and weak, she played and swam and had a good time, just like it was any other summer.

The last time I saw Jim was at my wedding. His face lighting up with glee as our combined families acted like a bunch of little kids, dancing, talking and laughing.

I’m an adult now. I have children of my own. I haven’t been back to Lazy Lee’s. I probably never will. I’d hate to see that the memories of my youth are wrong. To me, it will always be the perfect place to take a vacation. Why ruin that?

I probably won’t ever teach my girls to clean fish. I doubt they’ll have an interest. But I’ll certainly pick up a sharpening stone for my garage. They’re welcome to sharpen whatever they find.

I don’t know how I’ll ever tell Jim what those summers meant to my brother and me. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell him what he means to me. We never felt like outsiders, we never felt like we were just nephews. We were part of the family. There were no lines drawn.

Maybe Jim knew what he was doing for us those summers. Perhaps he knew that it was going to be particularly difficult for Bob and me to grow up without a father because he had been our hero.

All I know is that someone put me on their shoulders and I was looking over that fence again. I was seeing things I had never seen, doing things I had never done and learning things that only an experienced dad could teach you.

My Dad may not have been able to show me these things. But his life-long friend, my uncle, was happy to take the time to help out. Maybe he knew what he was doing. Maybe he was just being Jim. But those summers, and that time spent with him, the stories of his youth . . . and my father’s youth . . . certainly eased the pain a little.

I know I’ll never be able to find the words to express my feelings and gratefulness for Uncle Jim. Perhaps not. All I can offer are my best thoughts and wishes for his health and recovery. I just hope he knows that no matter what he’s going through, he has a family 350 miles away, hoping and praying for the best.

I hope to visit him soon. And when I do, I doubt I’ll be able to even voice ¼ of all the things I’ve said here. I don’t even know if they’d make sense to him.

But I will say this to him, as soon as I see him:

“Thank you.”

And the next time I’m out looking for ‘em, I’ll know who it was that showed me.