why I tell people I love them so often

tl;dr : why I'm so vocal about my love

I wanna tell you about my biggest fear. My biggest fear is losing someone before they know how I feel about them. I want people to know how they impacted me, how they helped shape me and how much they matter.

I used to be a really shy kid. I was afraid of everything....the dark, natural disasters, crime, strangers....you name it; I feared it. I was afraid to express love for people. I showed love by spending time around the people I admired.

I didn't have the courage to be vulnerable enough to express love for someone if I wasn't certain it would be reciprocated. I always felt inferior. I never felt worthy. It didn't matter if they were friends, family or people I crushed on.

As such, I swallowed a lot of my positive emotions for people. I stifled my praise for people. I didn't develop a vocabulary for gratitude until it was too late.

In 2000, I lost my Nana to cancer. She took a turn for the worse when I was in college & I didn't have a lot of time w/ her during her struggle. I'd never lost someone close to me so I didn't have any experience with this kind of grief.

I had no idea how to talk to someone who was dying let alone how to emotionally process that she was dying. She was essentially my second mom. My grandparents were my rocks.

I remember coming home to see her for the last time and it broke me. She was unable to speak. She was unable to move. She was technically alive but she was a shell of my Nana. I was too scared and too sad to be in the room with her. It was my first look at dying.

She died a couple of days later. Though, she might as well have been dead when I got there because I had 3 days to sit by her side & tell her what she meant to me. I had 3 days to hold her hand like I did when I was a kid. I had 3 days to say goodbye. Instead, I just cried.

I forgave myself for not being emotionally mature enough to handle that kind of intense communication. I'll always regret not taking the time to express my gratitude for the last time.
When people die, they only take what you gave them. I could have given more. I got so much.

My Uncle Joey - Nana's son - was one of my best friends.
He coached me through a lot of the grief I felt after Nana passed. I don't know if you've got family members that are more friends than family but for me - Uncle Joey was my friend.
He had my back my entire childhood.

My mom's friends were big drinkers and many of them would get drunk and bully me and my sister. FUN RIGHT?
I remember when I was 8 years old, one of the usual suspects decided he was going to wake me up, take me out of my bed and throw me into the pool in my pajamas.

I was 8 or 9 years old. I was already scared of everything. This didn't help. The more I'd struggle and cry, the funnier this piece of shit thought this was.
One night, after I was tossed into the pool fully clothed, I hid in the shed and cried. My Uncle Joey found me.

I told him what happened and within seconds he grabbed that drunk motherfucker by the throat and threatened his life and that dude never threw me in the pool again. In fact, I don't think he ever talked to me again.

Uncle Joey is the basis, the spine & the foundation for my altruism. He ALWAYS stood up for the vulnerable. He always stuck his neck out for people in trouble. He always went out of his way to make you feel like you were a part of his world. He made a difference effortlessly.

He talked to strangers. He offered people rides across the state. He shared his passions with you. He wanted you to be happy. He made you feel like you mattered even when you were 10 years old.

He just lived to be there for people. No matter what he was going through, you were a priority. You were important.

As I got older, we talked each other through break ups. He gave me advice about love and life & dealing with your parents. In 2003, we spent a week in Aruba bonding over music and he introduced me to the Pretenders and Jim Carroll and Warren Zevon. I could tell him anything.

The rest of my family was on the trip too but he and I spent most of the time together because we just enjoyed each other's company. That week was one of the best weeks of my life.

In 2004, I was pretty hard up for money. As the holidays approached, my guilt spiked as I knew I didn't have enough money to buy gifts for my family. I thought, you know, I can do better than that. So, I did.

Instead of buying gifts, I wrote the most heartfelt letters I could to my family for Christmas. I literally cried into paper as I captured what each person meant to me and how they've built the person that I am. It took a long time and I felt great about it.

Christmas came along and the letters were a hit for some people and seemed like a disappointment for others.
I could tell Uncle Joey was moved by the letter. I told him pretty much everything I've told you. To reflect someone's beauty back to them is powerful. Not everyone will see it.

But when they see it after you've shown them, you start a fire in that person that will burn forever.

In 2005, my Uncle Joey was diagnosed with cancer.

I don't have to tell you that this news destroyed me.

At the time, he was in the middle of a divorce. He had two young, beautiful children. He was the goddamn cornerstone of so many peoples' lives. I convinced myself that he'd be OK. Nothing could take Joey from us.

As he was going through chemo and radiation, he was staying with my Grandfather in Westfield, MA. I had the serendipitous luck of having an ACL surgery in August of 2005, so I got to spend a week at my Grandfather's recovering with Joey. It was like a family ICU.

Even though we were both in the shit, that week was another one of the best weeks of my life. I got to lay low and shoot the shit with Joey. He was gaunt and was losing hair but his sense of humor, his passionate altruism and his spirit were still somehow 100%.

Somehow, he was counseling me through my injury even though HIS was potentially terminal. That week, that spirit, gave me hope that Joey would power through and recover completely.

The holidays at the end of 2005 came and went. Uncle Joey's cancer stuck around. His diagnoses started to get darker and darker as did our optimism.

March 19th, 2006 was the last time I saw Uncle Joey in person. We were at the Holyoke St. Patricks Day Parade. We were laughing and drinking hot chocolate with Baileys in it. It was like any other day hanging out with Joey except everyone knew....

.... everyone knew that Uncle Joey was experiencing his "lasts". This was probably his last parade. I made an effort to laugh harder, make more sincere eye contact and hug for longer. I'll never forget the look on his face when he walked away after he said goodbye.

He knew that was our last face to face goodbye. It didn't hit me right away. A couple of weeks later, I got a call from my mom. The oncologists had given Uncle Joey less than a month to live.

I asked my mom if I could talk to him on the phone. She had to be there with him because he was having trouble moving and his phone calls were all on speaker phone. So, I spoke to him for the last time.

I was going through a pretty ugly break up & wouldn't you know it - my dying uncle brought me out of it. He told me that I deserved better. He told me that I deserved to be happy. He showed me who I was. He put dying aside to build me up when I was down. This was Uncle Joey.

He was having trouble speaking. One of his last sentences was hilarious. He was trying to tell me I was successful. He choked through a lot of his words that last week.

He said...
"You're success...
You're success..."
and he couldn't get the word 'successful' out...
so he said....
"You're accomplished."

He died about a week later.

His house needed to be cleaned out after he passed so the family spent a lot of time there together.

I had a hard time with that.
So, on my first visit, I went to his bedroom and sobbed.

I went over to his desk and started looking around. I opened the top drawer. Inside the top drawer was his wallet, his car keys.....

....and my letter.

I had never felt more complete in my life.
I'd love to tell you more about it sometime.
For now, I'll tell you this:
Be courageous enough to tell your people that you love them.
Be vulnerable enough to reflect someone's impact on you back at them.
Don't wait on this.
Love.