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The last of the brothers, that my grandmother used to have, 3 brothers and a sister. Growing up in poverty, on a farm that only required one hit with a nine tails to become the best of who they were. My uncle, Derek Smith, passed away last night due to his amputation surgery in a governmental hospital. Because even with success in the hotel industry in his life...he spent all his money and didn't have a retirement plan. Needing to get low healthcare to save his life, that ended up with 2 weeks of suffering.

My uncle, other than me, were the only two homosexuals in my family. And because of him, my grandmother grew up knowing that homosexuality wasn't as much of a sin to her religion than still family. It was because of him, that my outing as a teenage boy back in 2003, ended up with my grandmother telling me 'Are you trying to tell me you're gay? Because if you are, that's okay - I've known since you were 5 years old'.

South Africa before Mandela was riddled with homophobia, so much so we had the act that declared that anyone displaying homosexual tendencies would be jailed and then chemically castrated.

This didn't bother my uncle.

I'm going to share with you a story, my grandmother told me when she was younger.

My uncle always knew he was gay, but couldn't tell his parents, ended up marrying a woman and had kids with her - she did know he was gay but he needed to hide it from the world at that time.
My uncle was still proud of who he was, so him and my grandmother created an underground gay nightclub in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. There, she bounced people coming in until one day - someone told the police of what they were up to and well...the police raided that nightclub. My grandmother's memories of her rebellious self, echoed through my mind, telling me how they jumped walls to escape the cops and hid from them as they laughed to themselves. Those times of rebellion disappeared before I could even understand the word 'homosexuality'.

So you see, my uncle wasn't just...an uncle. He was a hero, like my grandmother was to me all my life.

My uncle had diabetes for the last half of his life and slowly his eyesight also deteriorated. By this year, he was almost completely blind, for he had only one eye visible.
Because of diabetes, he suffered gangrene in his toe 2 weeks ago. A week ago, getting his toe amputated, but it wasn't enough. The medical surgeons didn't do a good enough job and left him to die at the hospital. A city over, an ambulance came to collect him and save his life. They had to end up removing half his leg...but unfortunately it was too late.
He passed away last night, we aren't too sure of the time - or even the reason. The hospital just dismissed his body without us knowing.

So yeah...my uncle Derek, a hero, passed away today. May he rest in peace, and hopefully I'm wrong and he is up there with my grandmother - looking down at us, as we face the world like they did. I'll make them proud to be who I am.

Thank you for reading...sorry if my english is lackluster too - I didn't feel like reviewing this journal.

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