It was January 2012. My life was upside down and I was living one day at a time, shaken and feeling very much on an island.

It was also the first time I had ever celebrated my birthday in Florida, and it was a birthday I will never forget.

We went to visit Aunt Patsy and Uncle Charlie – Mom, Dad, and Sam, helping me to keep my chin up. It was Mom’s last time to go to Florida, her last time to visit her sister and brother-in-law in their home.

So many memories were made those 5 days we were there.

• Poolside early in the mornings, visiting with Uncle Charlie
• Devotions and prayer time around the breakfast table
• Riding bikes with Uncle Charlie, and he was decades older than us but beat us handily
• Getting a tour of the Sponge Capital of the World
• Sitting in their living room and receiving such solid, Biblical wisdom and advice from Aunt Patsy, advice that was covered with love and concern from one injured and broken woman to another
• An impromptu piano concert dual, Aunt Patsy and me, and Uncle Charlie adding some trumpet in the mix, to the delight of Mom, Dad, and Sam
• A surprise birthday party, new white towels that we still have, and a little seagull figurine
• Being Happy Birthday serenaded by Charlie and Patsy in person, rather than on their annual birthday phone calls that always makes me cry and feel so very loved
• Shopping at Bealls, Aunt Patsy’s “place”
• Watching Patsy look adoringly at Charlie from one end of the table to the other, and feeling like we were witnessing a love story
• Spending evenings at the dinner table, singing acapella hymns, all six of us – two hours of tender music with my family was just not enough

Tonight, I wish I could wrap my arms around them both one more time. I am counting on doing that when I see Aunt Patsy again, but Mom will have to hug Charlie for me. He went home this morning…

I can just hear him singing next to Mom tonight. The two of them are louder than everyone else, and there is no one with a bigger grin than Charlie Bruce.

I am so very grateful for Charlie.

I am so very grateful for the many times Uncle Charlie and Aunt Patsy would call and pray for me and for Sam, and they would both be sure to tell us how much they loved us. Charlie always shared scripture and words of wisdom and we never doubted he was petitioning our needs to God in prayer.

I am so very grateful I had the privilege of calling him my Uncle.

I am so very grateful I will see him again one day…