My uncle passed this morning, he had stage 4 cancer, so if I'm quiet or not responsive very much...that's why.

I've cried throughout the week, just knowing that at some point...he was going to be leaving...knew that this cancer was going to take him away from the family. Every call that came from one my mom's relatives was a combination of dread and fear, knowing that this call could be the one that said he was gone. My heart is filled with sorrow that he is gone, love of him as I got to know him before he was sent to prison for a while and yet, there is a bit of relief that he is no longer in pain...no longer suffering with a cancer riddled body.

He was spending 95% of the time sleeping from the morphine shots and I did not want to remember him laying in a hospital bed, I want to remember him as he was when he got out of prison...grateful for the few weeks he lived with us.

This morning, I held my mom as we cried together and I was crying too much to say anything...but I could hear my aunts and my mom saying The Lord's Prayer together, with my mom telling my uncle to go be with his dad and brother. It was right at this moment or very shortly after, that we believe he finally left his body and 'went home'.

I'm not a religious person and not even sure if I believe there is a God, but I have to admit that...when I was sitting next to mom and crying with her, it did feel like there was another presence with us...as if someone had wrapped us in deep love. And, that a small 'weight' had been lifted off from me...what that 'weight' was...I don't know, but I do know that I felt it.