For a while, I visited home roughly every 8-10 weeks after I moved away. My uncle would invariably have some article that was in the paper just that week he wanted to share with me when I got there.

I never thought about how this was a way to make sure we stopped to have a conversation. He worked strange hours, often overnight, and so overlapping wasn’t always easy.

I still miss him.

He and I would have had a lot discuss these last few weeks, with the Georgia runoff, insurrection at the Capitol, and now swearing in of President Biden and Vice President Harris.

This last year would have infuriated him and saddened him, and my grandmother. I can hear the way they would have sounded as they cheered during the swearing in. I know they would have called me.

It’s strange the times we remember those we have loved and now lost. But although I am sad thinking of them, I like to sit in these melancholy moments, because they are the times that my memories are most vivid and complete.