So part of the reason I've been so busy this spring has been dealing with the illness and death of my uncle. He'd been unwell (and unhappy, I think) for a long time, but it's still hard. Growing up, he was my idol - a cool English professor who sent me great books and my mum beautiful bouquets and lived far away in an exotic place called Calgary.
(That's my uncle on the left, my dad on the right.)
One of the things we found while preparing for his memorial service was this children's version of Don Quijote, which he apparently read for school in 1962. I can remember reading this often with my sister when we were small. It lived on a little bookshelf in our shared bedroom, and apparently I inscribed my own fancy initials in it at some point. This is the kind of stuff he had us reading when we were still in elementary school!
I'm re-reading the "grownup" version now, and thinking of him and how he influenced my intellectual growth my whole life. I also got to keep his pocket watch, on the back of which is engraved a quote from a letter Wallace Stevens wrote to his wife: I had my shirt turned back and my chemisette flung back, precisely like that corsair of hearts, le grand Byron, and I breathed!
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