my uncle tim died in october. this was my mom's older brother and he died nine years to the month after my mom, his sister. i always described uncle tim as my favorite uncle. at his funeral lots of people described him as their favorite fill-in-the-blank. a contributing factor to this was my uncle tim was a prankster. never malicious. never hurtful. but also never off-duty. he seemed to always have some con afoot. it seemed oxygen-like for him.

i remember the first time he properly got me. a group of us met up at my grandparents house. i was about twelve at the time. i walked into the kitchen and found uncle tim standing next to the fridge with a jar and a spoon held up close to his mouth. as soon as i rounded the corner, he quickly lowered his hands and turned his back to me. i was snared. i asked what he had. he said it was nothing. i said i knew he had something, i saw it. he said there wasn't enough to share. i said i didn't want a lot. just a taste. he straightened up so i could see his hands. then hesitantly, he dipped the spoon in and said that i could have some, but just a little. he pulled the spoon out and held if forward. and that was the first time i ever tasted horse-radish.

he'd usually only get you on an eating thing once, for obvious reasons. but this was ok for him because his favorite medium was shoes. at his memorial, person after person crossed the podium and said they now knew how their wingtip shoe got into their freezer that one time. and when he wasn't sneaking shoes into freezers (or in addition to putting shoe in freezers) if you had a shoe tree, he loved nothing more than re-arranging all the pairs so not a single matching set was left.

another of his staples was hanging pictures upside down or sideways. he was masterful at selecting photos that were visible but not prominent. this way it might not be something you'd notice for weeks or even months after his visit but you would at some point take notice. then in the time it took you to set it right you would remember that tim was over a week or a month back and smile that he still had that boyish blood in him. fact is, i'll never see an upside down picture and not think of my uncle tim.

but that was uncle tim. always quiet and always in the wings of any space. many thought it was because he was an introvert but it was mostly so people would forget he was there and he could move about unobserved and leave his marks. now that my favorite uncle has passed, there will be a lot fewer quizzical looks, followed by knowing smiles in this world. we will all miss those smiles uncle tim, but most of all we will miss that mischevious and knowing grin that crossed your face oh so many times.