When we were at the beach, I got a text from my cousin Molly that Uncle Bernie was in the hospital following some complaints about dizziness and blurry vision. Initially they thought it was pneumonia and some indeterminant infection, but after further tests they determined he had Legionnaires disease (apparently there was an outbreak in Marshall county that continues to grow exponentially). He was transferred from Marshalltown to Waterloo where he passed away a few days later – one week after his initial symptoms.
Bernie loomed large in my childhood, which was somewhat surprising given he left to do mission work in Bolivia when I was four and would only visit sporadically until he moved back to Iowa in the mid 1980s. He remained there for a few years before going to Peru in the mid-1990s before returning permanently to the Dubuque diocese in 1998. While based in South America, he would still come back for big events and the off family reunion –– he was there for my cousin Brandon's and my
First Communion, my Aunt Ellen's wedding and my cousin Brett's baptism. During those visits, he would entertain his nieces and nephews with rides on his motorcycle (in typical Grady fashion we all sported homemade
t-shirts following a major motorcycle accident he had), document their potty-training progress, play cards with them (he was a brazen, though entertaining, cheater), and organize the occasional fishing excursion. The latter permanently turned me off the sport, for while Christ believed in teaching a man to fish, Father Bernie's approach was to hand his eight year old niece a fish and a knife, send her off to clean it but with no instructions, only to then yell at her when she returned having mistakenly cut off its tail.
While abroad our communications were limited to audio tapes we would send (where we subjected him to our first musical explorations, including my early days learning the oboe); international calls at my grandparents farm (the farm was only a few years removed from party lines and as it was pre-deregulation, still subject to Ma Bell's whims, the result was astronomical rates by the minute and meant that as a young child I would be yelled at to come talk to my Uncle Bernie and then immediately screamed at to get off the phone since it was so expensive); and my far preferred method of communicating with Bernie, via post.
When I was younger, I would get really excited to see the international envelopes appear in the mail –– the thin paper with the crazy stamps and Bernie's manual type-written thoughts. Over time, he tended to prefer postcards (though occasionally he would send a more traditional letter which would include a pack of his address labels to facilitate my response). Towards the end, instead of writing back, he would just call me to thank me for my letter and chat.
Despite the distance, we spent a fair amount of time together. I was the most conveniently located niece for a while, and so was teased tirelessly, from my name (he always called me Lady Elaine, which I hated when I was little since I thought he was implying I was the ugly puppet on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood), to the tragedy of having been born a girl (which Bernie would often tell me, meant I couldn't do anything), to my cooking skills (I still won't eat banana pancake after he beat me in a cook-off). But he was also a calming presence who would quietly play Russian Bank with me for hours and silently turn on the hazards and tell me to go slow while I was driving through a torrential downpour.
Bernie was the first extended family member I told when I got engaged, hoping that he could marry Allen and me. And he eventually
sort of did, after spending 11 months getting us a dispensation. He baptized
both of our
children (free of charge). It's hard to digest that he won't be here for all the other big moments in our lives.
I was able to see him twice when I was back in Iowa this summer –– once at my parent's place and then again a week later for lunch in a small town I'd never heard of. We didn't get to talk much (his hearing has been challenging and whenever Gradys gather, the cacophony can be overwhelming), which I really, really regret.
He had an amazing send off. Hundreds gathered for both his vigil and funeral mass (which was in both English and Spanish). Dave spoke.
Teresa, Kevin, Colleen, and Blaine sang. I mostly cried. Bernie was a good man whom I really, really loved and am going to deeply miss.
I always ended letter to Bernie with quote. And so in the immortal words of V.E. Schwab in The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue,
That time always ends a second before you're ready.
That life is the minutes you want minus one.
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