Last night, I talked to my cousin for the better part of an hour. Via phone, she went along with me to the drugstore to pick up a prescription. Then I/we went home where I paced about the kitchen, doing dishes quietly with my free hand. They’d piled up a bit in the sink. These little slips of household maintenance happen when we’re in the middle of rehearsals like we are.

She calls about once a month these days. Though the two of us were quite close growing up, being about the same age, going to the same church and always tagging along with our parents for family get-togethers or road-trips. My brother is so much older than I (thirteen years), so I guess she filled a kind of sister role.

Lately, she’s become more and more involved in her church. She’s a lay minister now, meaning that she’s occasionally leading prayer in Sunday service or handling announcements and so on. This is a role once held in our home church by her father, my uncle.

We talked about what she’s been doing with her prayer group and what we’ve been doing with the theatre company. She talked about feeling a call to serve and how much she enjoyed making a difference in the lives of others. In a way, I said, that kind of effect is why the Drama Club continues like it does. When we’re only days from opening and the costumes aren’t quite done and the lines aren’t word-perfect and the sets are still only ideas on paper, it seems so much easier to just call it all off. But we don’t, because we know that the end result will be worth it. An actor will realize their potential. An audience member will recognize an appreciation they never thought they would.

We exchanged some polite gossip about people we both know from home, more informative than malicious. And we talked about how life was much different for each of us not so long ago. For her, so much about that change can be traced back to six years ago this week. 2001.

And maybe the same goes for me, at least in part. But not back to the anniversary you might think. Four days after the tragedy that still haunts us nationally, my uncle — her father — died.

As I recall it, he hadn’t suffered for very long prior, but his decline was swifter than we’d anticipated. Perhaps he’d been ill for longer than any of us knew or at least longer than his diagnosis allowed. But in less time than will ever seem fair, he was gone.

My uncle was one of the kindest human beings I’ve ever known or ever will know, family or not. One of the funniest, as well. In many ways, I’ve my uncle to blame for my sense of humor. He loved me very much, I know. I can’t help but miss him.

We talked a bit more. I told her about how I always suspected that my mother wished that I’d gone into the ministry, but given the turns she’s taken, maybe the minister ought to be her. She thought I was joking, being sarcastic as I can often be. I wasn’t. She let it pass. Then we both took notice of the late hour and said our goodbyes. As I was about to hang up, she told me she loved me, I said the same.

Since my grandmother’s passing the other week, my mom has been closing her calls the same way.

One more thing.

When I think about six years ago, I remember the color blue. That morning, something made me pay very close attention to the sky above me. I remember getting out of my car that morning, having just arrived at the Carter’s offices in Morrow, and looking up. It was beautiful. Maybe the prettiest sky I’ve ever seen. A stunning shade of blue with almost no clouds at all.