Jean Claude - His Death

My uncle in Houston has died. All his organs seem to have given up at the same time. Sometimes that happens, it feels right. 'Quelle vie!' as he would say, 'Merde!' He was more French than French, but once admitted to us, very late at night, that actually, being from Alsace, there was a family cloud of collaboration with the Germans, not that we could make much sense of it at the time, since he was off on one. Jean Claude escaped to Houston doing computing mathematics for those Mad Men he was very much part of. Drank like a fish did uncle Jean.
He married my beautiful aunt Bridget after she had stepped out of Melton Mowbray and in to tinsel town USA the year I was born, 1961. Me and my brother always got the best Christmas presents.

My Dad, who's over ninety, showed his wisdom below today remembering:

'a big pool of memories which range from the highly amusing to the pathetic. The more interesting and diverse the character the more intense appears the loss and ones omissions. I suppose that is how we ought to feel at these times if the relationship has meaning. Jean was a great character, difficult at times, loving at others. Argumentative yet smooth.'

Jean Claude was certainly charismatic, sometimes childish, sometimes way overboard, but since I heard of his death yesterday, the world has seemed rather flat.