Crying Uncle

My brother has cancer.
Pancreatic cancer, to be exact, and this is pretty much all I know of the medical side. I suppose I will know more in the upcoming days, and I suppose that I'll wish I didn't know so much by then.

He is quite simply the best of us. He is brilliant and talented and grounded and sane (no small feat in our end of the gene pool). He has raised beautiful, brilliant, talented and grounded children to the cusp of adulthood. He has walked through more fire than I could begin to explain.

He is 48 years old.

My sons adore him from afar. He sends perfect gifts--he sends vast numbers of flashlights and geodes and hammers and goggles (very glad for that last part, I would forget to do that). My children think him exotic and multi-talented and magical. And he is. These boys will need him, want him in their lives, and he will spark interests and talents in them, simply by his example. I need him, if just to look at our family portrait and point and say, "he's not crazy. He's really amazing."

I have too many words in my head right now to make much sense. Words about unfairness and loneliness and fear and grief. Words about my ache for him, for his family, for everything he's made, built, touched. Words about losing too much, too goddamn much, and for why?

My sons' most beloved uncle. My brother.

I should stop now.