connect

i find myself caught off guard a lot by the way things connect. like when my mother casually mentions that fifteen years ago this weekend my uncle first found out that his cancer had returned. he passed away a few months later, in the fall. my first thought was of that weekend because my parents went to michigan to visit him and my cousin came over to stay with me and my sister. we went to the tiny locally owned video store that was down the street. that was really our only option at the time, that or renting one of the ten movies the local grocery store carried. renting wasn't that big of a deal back then. we really only rented movies once or twice a year, mainly for birthday parties. our summers were spent outside. sick days meant we were sick, if we couldn't go to school then we didn't go to the store to rent a movie. and if were were inside, stuck in front of the tv, there was always something on. but that weekend we felt like superstars walking up and down the aisles of the video store, each of us allowed to pick out one movie for the weekend. i picked steel magnolias, wow what a shocker. that's a normal pick for a fifteen year old boy right? my sister picked she's out of control with tony danza, one of the greatest thespians of our time. and my cousin picked pretty woman. it's strange that that was the first thing that came to my mind when my mom mentioned that time. the crazier part was an hour or so later when i sat down to watch tv, turned it on, and found pretty woman staring back at me. i remember not really understanding the gravity of the situation at the time. i also remember crying a lot a few months later at my uncle's funeral. my cousin was there with us, looking after, again, as we sat there in the funeral home.