Losing our mom is a sorrowful thing. You sort of expect your dad to go but you think mom will live forever. It’s mournful at any age. I imagine it’s some mystical attachment to the womb.

Sometimes, though, it’s just plain inconvenient. My Uncle Dick was cruising along at age 54 with the world handed to him. He was living at home. No rent or utilities to pay. He could walk to work and to the Legion. He had it made is the shade, as they say. Well, as we all said. Then Grandma went and crapped out on him.

Now what was he supposed to do? Uncle Dick knew his brothers weren’t about to take him in. They barely allowed their own kids to stay until age 18, and that was mostly because it was the law. After 18, you were sort of a friend of the family. Yea, like any of us would be friends with them. No, the brothers were out. It would have to be one of the girls.

Problem here was that Aunt Helen was one of the girls and she was also crapped on when Grandpa crapped out. Uncle Dick had to exclude her as a possibility and he had to get to the other sisters first. It wasn’t that hard to do since Helen was slow because of her stroke, her bad eye and her weight. Uncle Dick left her in a cloud of dust. That set Helen’s asthma off.

The family held a vigil at her bedside. Instead of candles and prayers, they drank beer. She survived anyway so they didn’t care. Beer is beer. Uncle Dick was relieved. He had enough time to get all settled in with Loretta. That lasted until she went feeble and got put away. Uncle Dick saw it coming and had his stuff at Ling’s before Ling knew what was happening. When she keeled over, that left Helen. Uncle Dick figured Helen was still sore at him so he went ahead and checked out with a heart attack.

On the other side of the family, Uncle Bobby, an illiterate dwarf, lived with his mom. First problem there was that she had a heart attack and my old man moved her into the apartment we had at the back of the house. None of us exactly wanted Uncle Bobby living there. Oh, we liked him okay, just didn’t want him that close at hand. But, what could you do? Where Granny went, Uncle Bobby went.

Then, Granny really went. Uncle Bobby looked around at his sisters but they were too quick for him. They had their excuses ready and their locks changed. That left one sister, my mom. Mom was perfectly willing to let Uncle Bobby stay in the apartment. She would have moved him into the house except that the old man said no and we kids, all grown and on our own, said we’d, well, send Uncle Bobby on his way too.

Uncle Bobby knew he’d have to get past the old man to stay in the apartment. We kids, well, we two boys, had thrown his stuff out into the alley the morning of the funeral. Uncle Bobby needed the old man to say yes and that wasn’t going to happen. No way. Uncle Bobby knew he’d have to fight the old man.

He thought it through carefully. The old man, known as The Mechanical Man, was old, paralyzed on one side and slow. Uncle Bobby was a dwarf but younger and, he thought, quicker. Then he remembered the Mechanical Man part. Mechanical meant metal. Slow or not, one whack of the metal cane and Uncle Bobby was done for.

Uncle Bobby thought he’d have to kill the old man. Problem was, he’d never get away with it. He had the dwarf thing going for him but killing off an old, crippled guy negated that. No, he’d be found guilty and have to ride Old Sparky.

In those days, Pennsylvania still electrocuted murderers. None of this sissy being put to sleep crap. What Uncle Bobby didn’t think of was that there wasn’t any way that they could put the cap on his head and still attach the leg electrodes. Uncle Bobby’s legs weren’t long enough for that. The most that would have happened when they pulled the switch would be a jolt. Sort of like giving Uncle Bobby a shock treatment, which he’d always needed anyway.

Uncle Bobby probably would have only gotten a buzz.

He would have liked it.