A Remembrance of My Uncle

Last Friday, my Uncle Robert would have turned 93. He didn't make it to that birthday, passing away on January 20th. My uncle had a full life, no doubt. Two complete careers, a lover of opera, a booming voice and a devoted friend -- all are just part of who he was. He was also a cataloger of history. To understand the "then" of it, for many years, he traveled to see the "now." He and my late aunt traveled all over the world - England, Poland, Russia, Germany -- and with each stop, gained perspective on each location, each culture, each person.

Today, the blog contains reflections of him that I wrote for his memorial service.

And the encore for this is short and sweet, friends. No matter how long it is, life is too short. Be the loyal person, the one who stays in touch when you say you will. Sometimes it's a nuisance. It's a hassle to buy stamps, send cards, and make phone calls - especially in our era of incessant texting. There is nothing inherently wrong with texting. But life. Life is lived in the words and the connections. Be the connection.

Your encore for the day? Tell the people you love that you love them.

Robert Harold MacPherson:

I am Leslie MacPherson, daughter of Wallace MacPherson who was one of Robert’s younger brothers.  I didn’t see much of my uncles growing up. I knew I had two uncles, one older than my Dad and one younger, both Universalist ministers, one active in parish work and the other, who had moved onto a new career. Because of geographical distances, we only saw each other occasionally. In my mid-twenties, I decided that I wanted to change that and get to know them for myself. At the time, I was considering a career in ministry and since my lineage was as a MacPherson – literally: son of a parson – it meant that it was in my blood. I decided that I wanted to know these men as family.

And so, I did. I took trips to Richmond where my uncle – Rev. Dave – served a church and to Asheville to get to know Uncle Robert better. The funny thing is that Uncle Robert didn’t want me to call him Robert. For all his formality, and the Boston accent that never quite left him, when we corresponded, he wanted me to call him Uncle Bobo. Which yes, I really did.

Each of you has your perspective on who he was. Here’s what I can tell you; He loved the Red Sox and was passionate about politics. He stayed on top of what was happening locally, nationally and back here in New England. He was as eager to ask me what I thought about national elections as he was to hear what the mayors in his hometown of Somerville, MA were doing. Side note: He was thrilled when I sent him an article last March about the current mayor who had declared Somerville a sanctuary city and when the Attorney General announced he would be taking away funding from these cities, the mayor announced: “Come and get me.”

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2017/03/29/come-and-get-me-somerville-mayor-says-to-sheriff-calling-for-arrest-of-sanctuary-city-leaders

I LOVED sharing that article with him. 

During one trip to Asheville, I asked him why he had left the ministry and gone into speech pathology. I’m there were multiple reasons, but what he said was that he still considered himself a minister. He’d left the parish but not the work. He defined ministry broadly.

It was a bit of a miracle for my family that he’d gone into that field. In 1993, my mother was diagnosed with throat cancer. She lost her voicebox to surgery and my family was thrown into a world of unknowns. I can’t even begin to express how grateful we all were when Uncle Robert mailed two state-of-the-art electro-larynx devices to my parents. HE was the calm presence who understood it all and could patiently explain to my mother and father how to use them to produce sound. He was their angel.

This past year, I have had my own trials. Without going into details, I will simply say that Uncle Robert has been one of my lifelines. At 92, he stayed connected to me, emailing me and calling me every week for months.   We would talk about the Red Sox and Elizabeth Warren, the state of the world, and what my kids were up to. He kept me upbeat, because that’s who he was. Yes, he was so smart, but he was also relentlessly positive. In a world besieged by heartbreak, Uncle Robert ended every conversation with “Let’s look at the bright side, shall we? What else is there?”

And indeed, what else IS there?

I will hold these words in memory, and I will be grateful for the time with him that I was given. 

Peace.