A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise. Because that is how life is – full of surprises. – Isaac Bashevis Singer
Story written by Marc Fenton
I have known my uncle, Torsten, my entire life and, though he has always lived in Sweden (he and my mother are originally from Hamburg, Germany), I have seen him every few years and had the opportunity to know him extremely well. When I was 15, I had the good fortune to spend the summer with him, when we spent three weeks on his boat sailing around the Baltic Sea. I remember how he had an interesting personal library and, with my ample free time, I discovered Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, and Catch 22, and the Swedish mysteries of Sjöwall and Wahlöö. During college, when I was studying in London, I visited him in Sweden and he took me skiing, downhill and cross-country. I remember participating in a daring Swedish ritual, going naked from the hot steam room and then outdoors to roll in the snow and back again. I slept well that night, to be sure. Every few years Torsten would come to the United States to spend Christmas with his sister and her family. As a kid, I remember being amazed that a grown-up would read the Charlie Brown/Peanuts anthologies that my brother and I collected. As an adult, I have bonded with him further while he has used his extensive financial acumen to tutor me on how to invest my family’s modest savings to create a larger nest egg for our future.
All my life my uncle remained a single guy. He seemed to have many friends, the majority of whom were people with wives and children, but never a relationship of his own one could call romantic. When I discussed my uncle’s status with my mom, we agreed he was the kind of person who was just most comfortable with solitude, too set in his ways to find someone with whom to share his cherished private time. Though neither one of us discussed the subject with him, he always had people he cared about around him, men and women both.
That is until about seven or eight years ago when my mother called to tell me my 60-year-old uncle was living with someone, a woman named Birgitta, roughly my uncle’s age with full-grown children who had or were about to have kids of their own. Torsten and Birgitta were married a couple of years later, and I have my first aunt, my uncle his own local, real family. She now has an American family who she has visited on several occasions. Small wonders never will cease and change came when my uncle least expected it.
For people like us with MS we’re playing a waiting game, hoping the right solution arrives to make our lives more manageable. Will there be a cure in our lifetime, will something come along to make our lives easier than they are now? When and how will there be the change we are seeking? I’m continuing to live my life the best, most productive way I can. I stay informed and as healthy as possible for the day when I receive a phone call or read on the web or in a newspaper,”the mystery has been solved, the cause and cure for MS has been revealed.”
Have an exciting, rewarding week.
Stay cool,
Marc
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