To be honest, I feel bad for the other people in my family. My dad because he is going to lose his little brother/closest friend, my grandparents because they have to bury their son, and James, because he won't get to know Shawn the way I do. Every time I see Shawn, he'll smack my forehead and call me twurp. When you love someone enough, you learn to enjoy their strange ways of greeting you. I remember going to a family friend's bar with my dad and uncle, and my uncle said that he was going to hold me to something that I said when I was eight years old.
I had told Shawn that if the guy that I was dating didn't have the guts to meet and shake Shawn's hand, that he just wasn't worth it. I was eight years old when I said that mind you. After my dad left, he told me the story of why he calls my stepdad Jalapeno on a Stick. They were playing pool and according to him Joe, my stepdad, was cheating. Huge FYI he really is just that good. Shawn looked at him while holding a pool cue and said, "If you don't knock it off, I'm going to turn you into a jalapeno on a stick." I laughed and later, when I thought about this, I thought about how young and healthy he must've been. It made me cry.
He has a tattoo of my name that's just below the crook of his elbow. It has my two favorite colors, red and black, the day I was born, and Cherokee letters that say something along the lines of I love you. If he goes before I turn 18, then I am going to get a similar tattoo. It'll have his first and middle name, his two favorite colors, the day he was born, the day that he passed, and those same Cherokee letters.
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Shawn: An Almost Memoir
Non-FictionThis is a true story about how my uncle, Shawn, has been fighting cancer since 2011.
