When I was 11 years old, I had my first experience with a family member that wasn't alive. He was a man named Tom. He was an uncle I never knew who passed away at age 23. Tom was the son of my father's sister, who died when she was nine years old, leaving behind her mother and father
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Tom was the youngest of four children. We only knew him for a short time, but he always made an impression on me, and I remember him as someone who stood up for others.
When I was 12 years old, one day after school, I overheard my parents talking about how it would be "nice" if Tom were still around. My father said something to the effect of, "He'd have been about your age now."
I remember not being sure what they meant then or why this would be something that would be so "nice" for Tom to have happened.
But about a week later, my mother came home with a picture of her brother Tom. She asked me if I wanted to see it and told me to be quiet so she could show it to my father in another room. When he came back into the living room he had tears in his eyes and said that his brother Tom had recently passed away after suffering from leukemia for three years.
I never saw that picture again after that day.