8:30am I wake up and start to get ready for work like I do every other day. This time my morning routine is interupted by a phone call from my mother. She asks me for my dad’s cell phone number(he got a new one and she could not remember it) and tells me they are worried about my uncle. He has not shown up for work in two days. We hang up and I am stunned. This is not like him, he never missed work. I am not even sure if he ever took a vacation! I am not quite sure what to do at this point so I begin to pray, and I sit and wait.
20 minutes later my dad calls me back in a somber voice. My Uncle Jay has passed away. He was found with a heating pad on his shoulder and laying on the floor in his house. I hang up the phone and then it hits me. I cry, I swear, I punch the door. I can’t believe it, he is only 51. I call Gina and let her know what happened. I call my brothers and make sure they are ok. And then my dad comes home, not sure how he is doing it but he is strong. I ask him if he is alright, he says yes. I ask him what he is doing, he tells me he is going out to Uncle Jay’s house. I ask if I can come with, and quickly get ready.
So now we are driving out to Portersville to a house he just built and I have yet to visit. This 45 minute drive is terrible, I don’t know how to act. Inside I am so upset and not understanding my emotions. But I know on the outside that I have to be strong. On the way out my brother Marty calls me, he can’t sit at work any longer and wants to come out. I give him the general directions and tell him to call me when he gets off the exit. He sounds quite upset on the phone.
We finally arrive and we pull into the driveway behind an ambulence, police car and a coroner van. Since he was alone at the time, the police had to investigate the house. My Uncle Bus is upset, and pacing and shaking. We all stay our distance from the house while the EMT’s and Troopers take care of the situation.
At this point I am not sure what to do, so I begin to walk and survey the area. All weekend he was working on digging drainage trenches through his front yard. You can see where he stopped since a shovel was sticking out of a mound of dirt. This made me extremely mad and upset. He was digging the trench because of his next door neighbor. The neighbor decided to have his drain point right towards his yard and my uncle was so upset about this problem.
A few minutes go by and finally I see movement coming from the house. There he was, on a stretcher. Coming out of the house that he built with his own two hands. Being taken through the storm door that he just installed. And across the deck that he planned to finish. From there I couldn’t look any further. I just wanted it to be over.
The officers wave to us, and we all slowly and quitely head towards the house. We walk into his house slowly. His TV is still on, beside his chair sits the remains of his last snack, pretzels and a root beer. Stains on the floor where he laid. A freshly opened box of wall speakers he planned to mount all around the house. My grandmothers picture was facing where he would have laid.
Now the hard part, I am tasked with seeking out his car keys, wallet, safe and most importantly his will. I am 25 years old, and scared but I know it needs done. I head out to his garage to look in his truck for his car keys. Not in the ignition, I open the center console. I am faced with his work ID and his familiar smirk. Instantly tears hit my eyes, but I realize I need to do more work. I head to his spare room, I find bills, statements, keys and a box with a soft interior. In this box I find something that know one knew he had, his fathers dog tags. I find another item that will always stay strong in my memory. A brass top that he had, and gave my brothers each one. We received these on a trip to Miller Printing. So I am back to searching now, I feel strange digging through his papers and looking through his closets. I finally come across the safe, and then find the key. Opening the safe made me sick. This is just something that I did not want to do. I sort through and find the will, hand it to my uncle and leave the house for a few minutes. At this time I am not sure what to think, I just needed some time to cry and clear my head.
Back in the house again, Marty is getting close and I gave him the final directions. I finally locate his car keys and wallet by looking in his jeans pockets. Obviously I should have looked their first, jeans were his thing. Actually Jeans and Harley T-Shirts. At almost every occasion, this is what he would wear. We would all kid him about it, and he would laugh too.
Marty finally arrives… He is the strongest out of everyone. He takes it upon himself to clean up the mess that was left. THe next few hours I am not quite sure what happened. We looked for items that might help us piece together who Uncle Jay was. We knew him, but I am not sure if anyone ever really knew him.
His friends Mario and Larry stop by the house, they have their wives in hand. These were some of Uncle Jay’s closest friends. We all introduced ourselves, and they tell us yes we have heard all about you. This strikes me as odd, my uncle never seemed like the person that really cared about his family. He visited on holidays and birthdays, this was pretty much it. Larry’s wife ask Marty and I, which one was in the bar fight on thanksgiving. Again striking, I say me. She tells me that he was proud. Again this is very odd for me, especially since he teased me the whole day and called me Rocky.
The friends leave, UB leaves, and Marty, me and Dad sit in his living room. Talking about Uncle Jay, he things that we remember about him. At this time I am upset, but smiling at the humerous stories. We all finally depart the house and then begins the ride home.
I have left the state of hysteria and shock. Now I am to the point where I am just upset but I still don’t understand why I am upset. All of my life, my grand mother, my mother, they all told me I was just like him. He was my godfather, yet I never really knew him. I guess I didn’t have to know him because of the similaritys between our personalities, work ethics and humor. I can just hear him up in heaven now, saying jesus christ who the hell is going to finish all that work now. Thats what was important to him, busting his hump as he would say. He skipped easter to work on the drainage problem, he was just so obsessed with wanting everything to be perfect.
So now I sit, millions of thoughts going through my head. Trying to piece everything together, pulling up pictures in my head. Finding memories that I stashed away over the years of pain and hurt I felt from him. I write this not for your sympathy but for my solice. I need to express these emotions somewhere, better here surrounded by friend then anywhere else I can think of.
Please keep my family in your prayers, this is definitely a shock for all of us.
Jay Thomas White
02/19/1955 - 04/30/2006