As a child I remembered his drunken rages. He lived with my grandmother or as I called her Grandma. In one of his rages or really there was two of them that I remember, he chased her around the out side of the house and when he caught her, he beat her within the inch of her life. He was sent away to a mental hospital for a long time. When he was born, he was somewhat retarded and when he found his father dead one day it just sent him over the deep end. He was about 10 yrs old at the time. He was in the army for a short while but was soon discharged medically with a mental defect.

He spent many a year in the mental hospital with medical leaves which he usually ended up drunk and very abusive and belligerent toward Grandma. So I grew up hating him with all my heart . To me he was the meanest man on earth.

I went in to care for him. He did not recognize me at first. I told him who I was and he said "Now I know who you are." He was friendly enough and somewhat kind in his speaking. He did his own personal care (thank goodness). You could tell in his manner of speaking that the mental retardness controlled his ideas and actions. He was just a child in a man's body. He did not remember Grandma had passed on or of his years in the mental hospital. It had been yrs since his last drink. While in the mental hospital he got to weighing over 300 lbs and probably close to 400. Now he probably weighed about 140 or less.

After several times of talking with him, he was not the man I remember as a child. He was harmless now and was like talking to a 8 or 9 year old. Since Grandma's death a few years before, he was under the guardianship of his baby brother who kept him in one nursing home after another. He never knew where to call home any more.

In my conversations with him, I grew quite fond of him and eventually did not see him mean and cruel. I saw him as a poor helpless child without a home. It was clear my uncle did not care for him except for his ssi check. Nursing homes back then were heck of a lot cheaper then than they are now, so there was money left over from his ssi checks. My uncle, his guardian, was always money hungry. When my uncle died, no funeral, and I do not know where he was buried. I guess it cost his guardian too much for a funeral and such.

I learned how to forgive those few weeks he was with us. Without the effects of the alcohol, he was a kind hearted kid who just wanted to be loved. I guess God made the assignments that day my mean uncle came to my floor to be taken care of. He had NO visitors the whole time he was there. He actually looked forward to seeing me each day. He never understood that I was his nurse assigned to care for him. I was just his niece who cared enough to visit him 5-6 days a week. I never told him the truth. I could not break his heart like he broke mine so many, many years ago.